SEEMONS 



PREACHED AT 



miNITY CHAPEL, BRIGHTON, 



BY THE LATE 




REV. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., 



THE INCUMBENT 



SECOND SERIES. 



SEVENTH AMERICAN', FROM THE FIFTH LONDON EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 

MDCCCLXIT. 






GIFT 

WINFRED OVERHOtSEl 
DEC. 13, 1951 



9o 
THE CONGREGATION 



WORSHIPPING IN 



TRINITY CHAPEL, BKIGHTON, 



FROM AUGUST 15, 1847, TO AUGUST 15, 1853, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SERMONS 



PREACHED BY THEIR LATE PASTOR 



ARE DEDICATED 



FEELINGS OF GRATEFUL RESPECT. 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. 

In the preface to the First Volume I explained 
the circumstances under which these Sermons were 
preserved, and it is not therefore necessary for me 
to do more now than allude to that preface, in pub- 
lishing this Second Volume. But I cannot forbear 
taking this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging 
the numerous tributes to my dear Brother's useful- 
ness which I have received since the First Volume 
was issued. 

Two years have now passed since those earnest 
and eloquent lips were silent in death; yet I am 
assured that his teaching is still remembered with 
love and gratitude; and I have a confident hope 
that the publication of these Sermons, imperfect as 
they are, and confessedly inadequate to the full 
representation of the grace and power which char- 

1* (5) 



6 PREFACE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. 

acterized his ministry, will be a means of continuing 

the blessed work which he did in his lifetime, and 

thus many who never saw his face may receive a 

lasting benefit from his teaching. 

STRUAN ROBERTSON 
Rodney House, Chbltexham. 



CONTENTS. 



MEMOIR Page 13 

SERMON I. 
[Preached June 22, 1851.] 

CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE.* 

Luke xii. 13-15. — " And one of the company said unto him. Master, 
speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he 
said unto him, Man, who made me a judge, or a divider over you ? 
And he said unto them. Take heed, and beware of covetousness : for 
a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
pctjsesseth." 17 

SERMON II. 

[Preached January 6, 1850.] 

THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

Matt. ii. 1, 2. — " Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, 
in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the 
east to Jerusalem, saying. Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship 
him." 46 

* This Sermon should have followed next after Sermon XVII. in Volume 
[. (The Message of the Church to Men of Wealth), to which it is the 
sequel, completing the argument. 

(7) 



8 CONTENTS. 

SERMON III. 

[Preached February 10, 1850.] 
THE HEALING OF JAIEUS' DAUGHTER. 

Matt. ix. 23-25. — "And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and 
saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them. 
Give place ; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed 
him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and 
took her by the hand, and the maid arose." ........ Page 60 

SERMON IV. 

[Preached March 10, 1850.] 
BAPTISM. 

Gal. iii. 26-29. — *' For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond 
nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ 
Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
according to the promise." 75 

SERMON Y. 

[Preached March 17, 1850.] 
BAPTISM. 

1 Peter iii. 21. — "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also 
now save us." 92 

SERMON YI. 

[Preached October 13, 1850.] 

ELIJAH. 

1 Kings xix. 4. — *' But he himself went on a day's journey into the 
wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper-tree ; and he 
requested for himself that he might die ; and said, It is enough : now, 
Lord, take away my life ; for I am not better than my fathers." 



CONTENTS. 9 

SERMON VII. 

[Preached January 12, 1851.] 
NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

Written by David, after a double crime : Uriah put in the forefront of 
the battle, — the wife of the murdered man taken, &c. . • . Page 117 

SERMON VIII. 

[Preached March 2, 1851.] 

OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 

John vii. 17. — "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." . . . 128 

SERMON IX. 

[Preached March, 30, 1851.] 
RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 

Psalm xlii. 1-3. — '* As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so 
panteth my soul after thee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for 
the living God ; when shall I come and appear before God ? My tears 
have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me. 
Where is thy God ? " 141 

SERMON X. 

[Preached April 6, 1851.] 

FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 

Matt. viii. 10. — " When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them 
that followed. Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, 
no, not in Israel." 149 

SERMON XI. 

[Preached July 27, 1851.] 

THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

Gal. vi 1, 2. — " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which 
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; consid- 
ering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 150 



10 CONTENTS. 

SERMON XII. 

[Preached Christmas Day, 1851.] 

^ CHRIST THE SON. 

Heb. i. 1. — " God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake 
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son." Page 172 

SERMON XIII. 

[Preached April 25, 1852.] 

WORLDLINESS. 

1 John ii. 15-17. — "If any man love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is 
of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but 
xie that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 182 

SERMON XIV. 

[Preached November 14, 1852.] 

THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE RELIGIOUS 
NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

Rom. xiv. 5, 6. — *' One man esteemeth one day above another; another 
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; 
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard 
it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; 
and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God 
thanks." 198 

SERMON XV. 

[Preached January 2, 1853.] 
^ THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

Luke ii. 40. — "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled 
with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." 213 



CONTENTS. 11 

SERMON XVI. 

[Preached January 9, 1853.] 
CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 
Luke six. 10 — " The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which 
was lost." Page 229 

SERMON XVII. 

[Preached January 16, 1853.] 

THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

John xvii. 19. — " And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also 
might be sanctified through the truth." 244 

SERMON XVIII. 

[Preached January 23, 1853.] 
THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

I. THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 

John ii. 11. — *' This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." 

261 

SERMON XIX. 

[Preached January 30, 1853.] 
THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

II. THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 

John ii. 11. — " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." 

277 

SERMON XX. 

[Preached March 20, 1853.] 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD 

John x. 14, 15. — *' I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and 
am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the 
Father ; and I lay down my life for the sheep." 294 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

[Preached Easter-Jlay, March 27, 1853.] 
THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

John xx. 29. — " Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen 
me, thou hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet 
have believed." Page 312 

CHAPTER XXII. 

[Preached May 8, 1853.] 
THE IREEPARABLE PAST. 

ARK xiv. 41, 42. — "And he cometh the third time, and saith unto 
them, Sleep on now, and take your rest : it is enough, the hour is 
come ; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 
Rise up, let us go ; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." .... 329 



MEMOIR. 

Frederick Wili.iam Robertson was born in London, the 
3d February, 1816. He had Scotch blood in his veins ; 
his grandfather held a commission in the 83d or Glasgow 
Regiment, during the American war. Of his early life we 
know little ; it seems to have been passed in considerable 
vicissitude. One fact is interesting for its clear foreshad- 
owing of the man : when four years old he derived his 
chief pleasure from books ; to the last he was an ardent, 
zealous student. He passed some years of his childhood 
at Leith Fort, where his father, a Captain of Artillery, was 
stationed. At nine we find him at the Grammar School of 
Beverley. Removed from this, he accompanied his pa- 
rents to the Continent, residing chiefly in France ; and at 
fifteen he entered the New Academy in Edinburgh, where, 
under Archdeacon Williams, he distinguished himself in 
Greek and Latin verse. After a year of the Academy, he 
attended the philosophical classes at the University, and 
prepared himself for the study of the Law.* The profes- 
sion was uncongenial, his dislike to it grew upon him, and 
in a few months it was abandoned for the Army, to which 
he had a strong predilection. 

He was of a military ancestry and a military family. 
To the end it was the heart of a soldier that beat within 
the delicate and shattered frame. " Those who have en- 
joyed his confidence, even of late years, can well under- 
stand the boyish ardor and enthusiasm with which he 
contemplated a military life. Despite extreme nervous 
sensibility, and an almost feminine delicacy of feeling, he 

* Dr. Terrot, now Bishop of Edinburgh, acted as his private tutor. 
2 (13) 



14 MEMOIR. 

was at heart brave, manly, intrepid, with a quick sym- 
pathy for all that was noble, courageous, and unselfish — 
with, as he himself expressed it, an ' unutterable admira- 
tion of heroic daring.' '' Those who have read his Leo* 
tures on Poetry will not readily forget the ardor with 
which he relates the chivalry of our soldiers in Scinde, 
the strong sympathy by which he interprets the thoughts 
they only felt, the fine burst of enthusiasm with which he 
defends war against the abuse of peace societies : 

' ' Take away honor and imagination and poetry from war, and 
it becomes carnage. Doubtless. And take away public spirit and 
invisible principles from resistance to a tax, and Hampden becomes a 
noisy demagogue. . . . Carnage is terrible. The conversion of 
producers into destroyers is a calamity. Death, and insults to 
woman worse than death, and human features obliterated beneath 
the hoof of the war-horse, and reeking hospitals, and ruined com- 
merce, and violated homes, and broken hearts — they are all awful. 
But there is something worse than death. Cowardice is worse. 
And the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it is 
worse than death — ay, worse than a hundred thousand deaths — 
when a people has gravitated down into the creed, that the ' wealth 
of nations ' consists not in generous hearts — 

' Fire in each breast, and freedom in each brow ' — 

in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, 
and preference of duty to life ; not in men, but in silk, and cotton, 
and something that they call ' capital.' Peace is blessed. Peace, 
arising out of charity. But peace, springing out of the calcula- 
tions of selfishness, is not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace 
is this, that wealth accumulate and men decay, better far that every 
street in every town of our once noble country should run blood ! ' ' 

There must be many who yet remember the thrill of the 
words with which he prefaced Wordsworth's noble sonnet, 

" It is not to be thought of that the flood: " — 
" The moment was like that of the deep silence which precedes a 



MEMOIR. 15 

thunder-storm, wheii every breath is hushed, and every separate 
dried leaf, as it falls through the boughs, is heard tinkling down. 
from branch to branch ; when men's breath was held, when men's 
blood beat thick in their hearts as they waited, in solemn and grand, 
but not in painful — rather in triumphant — expectation, for the 
moment when the storm should break, and the French cry of Glory ! 
should be thundered back again by England's sublimer battle-cry 
of Duty!" 

That he retained this soldier-spirit is, in a man of his 
fervent piety, a proof that it is not an ungodly spirit. 
Colonel Gardiner thought it no blot on the escutcheon of 
his faith that he went out to fight at Prestonpans ; heroic 
Hedley Vicars received his mortal wound as he led a bay- 
onet charge. And had Mr. Robertson entered the army 
with the " deep religious convictions " he entertained, he 
would, by the grace of God, have wielded the same 
healthy Christian influence as an officer, though in a much 
narrower sphere, which he did wield as a clergyman. 

God, however, had better things in store for him. He 
had been placed, at the request of King William IV., upon 
the Commander-in-Chief's list. Some delay occurred be- 
fore he received his commission. His friends took advan- 
tage of it to urge the higher claims of the Church ; among 
others, the present Bishop of Cashel pressed him to de- 
vote himself directly to the service of God. He was 
strongly moved, but not decided. He left it to his father 
to choose : the result was that he matriculated at Oxford. 
Four days after his matriculation, he received the offer of 
a cornetcy in the 2d Dragoon Guards ; but his course had 
been taken, and he would not turn back. We need not 
point out the perfect confidence between father and son 
which this incident reveals, nor the humility and unselfish- 
ness of Mr. Robertson. They were manifested as touch- 
ingly and strikingly at another crisis of his history. They 
characterized his life. 

There is but scanty record of his terms at Oxford. He 



16 MEMOIR. 

was a hard student, and acquired a high reputation ; but, 
from a* singular diffidence, he refused to go up for honors, 
though urged by his tutors, and twice requested, under 
peculiarly flattering circumstances, by the Examiners. Mr. 
Ruskin was one of his associates, and doubtless stimulated 
his keen relish for art. And from a passage in his Lec- 
tures, it appears that even then he cultivated the habit of 
close observation, the perception of the nicer shadea (if 
feeling, which distinguished him in riper years : 

"At Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, there is 
a Madonna, into which the old Catholic painter has tried to cast 
the religious conceptions of the Middle Ages, virgin purity and infi- 
nite repose. The look is upwards, the predominant color of the 
picture blue, which we know has in itself a strange power to lull 
and soothe. It is impossible to gaze on this picture without being 
conscious of a calming influence. During that period of the year 
in which the friends of the young men of Oxford come to visit their 
brothers and sons, and Blenheim becomes a place of favorite resort, 
I have stood aside near that picture, to watch its effect on the dif- 
ferent gazers, and have seen group after group of young undergradu- 
ates and ladies, full of life and noisy spirits, unconsciously stilled 
before it, the countenance relaxing into calmness, and the voice 
sinking to a whisper. The painter had spoken his message, and 
human beings, ages after, felt what he meant to say." 

While at Brazenose he witnessed two scenes which left 
an ineffaceable impression on his memory, to which he re- 
ferred long after with lively emotion. He saw the triumph 
of " Arnold, the type of English action, and Wordsworth, 
the type of English thought.'' The two men who had 
quietly revolutionized England — who had been greeted at 
the outset with hostility and scorn — who, with firm, pa- 
tient manliness, and in the living conviction of the truth 
they loved, had held on their way against reproach, cal- 
umny, inveterate prejudice, public opinion — were crowned 
in the same theatre with enthusiastic applause. It sunk 
deep into the heart of the student. There lay in it a sig- 



MEMOIR. 17 

nificant prophecy for himself. He reaped the darkness 
and the wrong ; the glory and the light came too late. 

Immediately after leaving college he was ordained, and 
discharged the duties of a curate at Winchester for about 
twelve months, when "his health began to decline, and he 
went on the Continent to recruit his shattered energies.'' 
In his absence he visited much of the beautiful scenery 
that is accessible to an enthusiastic, and, notwithstanding 
his nervous delicacy, hardy traveller. It was no doubt a 
time of exquisite enjoyment. His sermons abound in rapid 
sketches that unfold his intense delight in natural beauty, 
and which are remarkable no less for their poetry of ex- 
pression, than their fidelity, and the vividness they assume 
from the notice of trifles, characteristic, but commonly 
unheeded. He was married at Geneva, and soon after 
returned to England. During the next four years he 
acted as curate of Christ Church, Cheltenham ; and at the 
beginning of X84*7 he removed to St. Ebbs, Oxford. It 
was while officiating here for two months that he received 
the offer of the Church at Brighton, with which his name 
and work will be always associated. " At St. Ebbs he re- 
ceived a stipend for his services miserably inadequate to 
their value ; yet when the incumbency of Trinity Chapel, 
Brighton, with the comparatively splendid income to be 
derived from it, was pointed out to him, he only expressed 
a willingness to sacrifice his own personal convenience 
and emolument to the cause in which he labored, and left 
it to the Bishop of Oxford to send him wherever his lord- 
ship thought he would be most useful. The Bishop ad- 
vised his coming to Brighton, and he prepared to do so." 
Between the Army and the Church, he left the choice with 
his father; between St. Ebbs and Brighton, with his Bishop 
There was the same humility, childlikeness, unselfishness ; 
but in this instance more direct consecration to God, a 
2* 



18 MEMOIR. 

higher pitch of self-sacrifice. He entered on his work at 
Brighton August 15, 1841. 

Hitherto he had been a quiet, faithful, laborious curate, 
doing his parish work zealously and unobtrusively, "bene- 
fiting greatly those under the influence of his ministry.'' 
Genial and lovable, he had many friends. 

There were some to admire his rare powers ; and a few 
even bold enough to follow his originality, though it led 
them very far out of the beaten tracks of thought. In 
Brighton it was different. Trinity Chapel was well known. 
It was occupied by one of the most aristocratic and intel- 
lectual audiences in England. His eloquence and original- 
ity could not fail to be marked. And if the congregation 
was intellectual, he was preeminently so. The Chapel be- 
came crowded. Sittings were scarcely ever to be had. 
For six years the enthusiasm never slackened ; it grew and 
spread silently and steadily, and when he died broke out 
in a burst of universal sorrow. He was in no way misled 
by it. He was thankful for being listened to, for he felt 
he had a message from God to deliver. But he put no 
faith in mere excitement, the eager upturned face, the still 
hush of attention. "What is ministerial success?'' he 
asks. — " Crowded churches — full aisles — attentive con- 
gregations — the approval of the religious world — much 
impression produced ? Elijah thought so ; and when he 
found out his mistake, and discovered that the applause 
on Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well- 
nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies 
in altered lives and obedient humble hearts ; unseen work 
recognized in the judgment-day." That success was 
abundantly vouchsafed to him. It was the testimony of 
one who knew him well : — "I cannot count up conquests 
in any place or by any man so numerous and so vast, — 
conquests achieved in so short a period, and in many in- 
stances over the hearts and consciences of those whom, 



MEMOIR. 19 

from their age or pursuits, it is always most difiBcult to 
reach, — as were the conquests of that devoted soldier of 
the cross of Christ whose followers you were/' * 

Mr. Kobertson left no means untried by which to win 
sinful men and women to the love of Christ. He sought 
them in their homes, in their haunts of vice, suffering no 
pain nor trouble of his own to hinder him, deterred by no 
fear of misconception, never losing sight of them, pleading 
with them with the irresistible force of an ardent nature 
sanctified and intensified by the Holy Spirit. Even in his 
undergraduateship, there were many who received througl: 
him light, strength, and the knowledge of a Saviour ; and 
their number kept pace with the widening sphere of his 
influence. 

Yet there was a dark side to all this, a shadow that 
blighted where it fell. The originality, the manly out- 
spoken thoughts, the freedom from conventionalism and 
cant phrase, the firm grasp of truth, the bold utterance of 
it without respect of persons or parties, — all this, which 
had attracted no great notice in the curate at Winchester 
or Cheltenham, became as noted as the popularity of the 
incumbent of Brighton. From this time he was attacked 
with coarse abuse, -^ his words were twisted, his meaning 
misrepresented. He was pursued with a venom which 
only religious men and religious papers know how to use ; 
his simplest acts were turned into an engine to assail him ; 
he was held up to odium by bad names, persecuted with a 
relentless cruelty that embittered his life. He did not 
complain. " It seems to me a pitiful thing,'' he once said, 
"for any man to aspire to be true and to speak truth, and 
then to complain in astonishment that truth has not crowns 
to give, but thorns." f But he had a feeble body, and a 

* From a Funeral Sermon by the Rev. James Anderson, the excellent 
Preacher of Lincoln's Inn. 

t Second Address to the Working Men. 



20 MEMOIR. 

nervous system which was exquisitely acute ; and, " hu- 
manly speaking, his death was hastened by anxiety and 
intense susceptibility, acting upon an exhausted frame, 
unfit to cope longer with the trouble and suffering so plen- 
tifully strewn in his path.'^ * To a man who was thought- 
less enough to charge him with gaining considerable self- 
applause and great popularity with the multitude by 
affecting to look down from a cool, philosophic height on 
the struggle and heat below, he wrote a touching letter, in 
which he thus sorrowfully describes his own position : 

" He will find himself [he is supposing his accuser in his place], 
to his painful surprise, charged on the one side for his earnestness 
with heresy, and on the other for his charity with latudinarianism. 
.... He will find his attempt to love men, and his yearnings for 
their sympathy, met by suspicion of his motives, and malignant 
slanders upon his life ; his passionate desire to reach ideas instead 
of words, and get to the root of what men mean, he will find treated, 
even by those who think that they are candid, as the gratification of 
a literary taste, and the affectation of a philosophic height above the 
strife of human existence. I would not recommend him to try "that 
philosophic height which he thinks so self-indulgent, unless he has 
the hardihood to face the keenest winds that blow over all lonely 
places, whether lonely heights or lonely flats. If he can steel his 
heart against distrust and suspicion, — if he can dare to be pro- 
nounced dangerous by the ignorant, hinted at by his brethren in 
public, and warned against in private, — if he can resolve to be 
struck on every side, and not strike again, giving all quarter and 
asking none, — if he can struggle in the dark with the prayer for 
light of Ajax on his lips, in silence and alone, — then let him adopt 
the line which seems so easy, and be fair and generous and chival- 
rous to all." 

The rancor of his opponents did not even cease with 
Kfe, — it followed him to the stillness of the tomb. In 
papers which met the eye of his afflicted relatives while the 
earth was yet fresh upon his grave, weighty doubts were 
expressed about the possibility of his. salvation. The 

* Preface to the Lectures on Poetry. 



MEMOIR. 21 

Christian mind of Britain has taken its own view of the 
matter. Edition after edition of his Sermons is exhausted. 
His name stands high, and it is rising- surely to its fitting 
place. He is spoken of with strong difference of opinion 
sometimes, — but even then with respect and admiration ; 
and his Sermons are already assumed to be a landmark in 
the religious thought of his country. There was encour- 
agement, too, during these brief six years. On the Christ- 
mas morning after his settlement in Brighton, he found a 
set of handsome prayer-books on the reading-desk, pre- 
sented by the servants who attended his Chapel. The 
year before he died, he received an address from the young 
men, no less affectionate than cheering to the heart of the 
pastor. He was able to say, in his reply; " I know that 
there are many who were long in darkness and doubt and 
saw no light, and who have now found an anchor and a 

rock and a resting-place I feel deeply grateful to 

be enabled to say that, if my ministry were to close 
to-morrow, it has not been in this town altogether an 
entire failure. '' And, through all his trials, the love, and 
earnestness, and ready helpful sympathy, of his congrega- 
tion, were an unspeakable comfort. 

To his preaching we have previously referred in some 
detail. We shall not return to it now, though we feel 
painfully how much has been left unsaid. It was marked 
by an intense realization of the truth of Christ, and an 
equally intense realization of the life of Christ. He inter- 
preted Scripture with a marvellous insight. A clear light 
often flashes from passages which another man would have 
left or made dark enigmas. The inward gifts which God 
bestowed on him in such large measure are manifest in 
every page of his writings. They were wedded in exqui- 
site harmony to many outward graces, — those which lend 
effective aid to the persuasion of the preacher. He had 
"a noble and attractive mien;" *' an utterance the most 



22 MEMOIR. 

exquisitely melodious and thrilling ; '' a face that reflected 
every shifting play of feeling ; a figure frail, and made 
frailer by disease, but erect and manly ; a refined delicacy, 
a winning grace. He spoke with an impassioned elo- 
quence, of which his posthumous Sermons can give but 
faint conception. Men the most widely opposed to him, 
scoffers and careless sceptics, when they entered his 
urch, were arrested by the torrent-flow of thought, the 
oetic imagery, the fiery glow of the words ; yet more 
than all, perhaps, they were thrilled by his mysterious 
knowledge of the human heart, the depth and purity of 
his love for God. He was an extemporary preacher. His 
manner was to have " a few words pencilled upon a card 
or scrap of note-paper, and sufficing by way of ground- 
work ; yet his spontaneous efforts were, in point of com- 
position, as highly finished as if they had been set down 
and committed to memory." His style was simple, but 
not in the sense commonly received of sentences (no mat- 
ter about the thoughts) running after each other on easy 
words of two syllables ; for, though his language was 
plain, apt, and never redundant, the thoughts were pro- 
found, the reasoning close, the whole tone intellectual. It 
required patient and trained effort of mind to follow him 
and take up his fulness of meaning. His congregation 
was composed of the highly educated, and he preached to 
them as a man of education and refinement. It was his 
special vocation. Yet the poor were never sent hungry 
away. His later Sermons are pervaded by a tone of sad- 
ness : 

" Not one of us but has felt his heart aching for want of sym- 
pathy. We have had our lonely hours, our days of disappoint- 
ment, and our moments of hopelessness ; times when our highest 
feelings have been misunderstood, and our purest met with ridi- 
cule. Days when our heavy secret was lying unshared, like ice 
upon the heart. And then the spirit gives way ; we have wished 
that all were over, — that we could lie down tired, and rest, like 
the children, from life." 



MEMOIR. 23 

He dwells on "the lofty sadness which characterized 
the late ministry of Jesus, as He went down from the 
sunny mountain-tops of life, into the darkening shades of 
the valley where lies the grave/' 

His thoughts turn with a weary melancholy to the care- 
lessness with which men live and die : 

" Have you ever seen those marble statues in some public square 
or garden, which art has so fashioned into a perennial fountain, 
that through the lips, or through the hands, the clear water flows 
in a perpetual stream, on and on forever, and the marble stands 
there — passive, cold — making no effort to arrest the gliding 
water ? 

" It is so that time flows through the hands of men, — swift, 
never pausing, till it has run itself out : and there is the man petri- 
fied into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing 
away forever." 

He speaks oftener of the hollow nothingness of the tem- 
poral and visible : 

"Things are passing, — our friends are dropping off from us; 
strength is giving way ; our relish for earth is going, and the world 
no longer wears to our hearts the radiance that once it wore. We 
have the same sky above us, and the same scenes around us ; but 
the freshness that our hearts extracted from everything in boyhood, 
and the glory that seemed to rest once on earth and life, have faded 
away forever. Sad and gloomy truths to the man who is going 
down to the grave with his work undone. Not sad to the Chris- 
tian ; but rousing, exciting, invigorating. If it be the eleventh 
hour, we have no time for folding of the hands ; we will work the 
faster. Through the changefulness of life ; through the solemn 
tolling of the bell of time, which tells us that another, and another, 
and another, are gone before us ; through the noiseless rush of a 
world which is going down with gigantic footsteps into nothingness, 
let not the Christian slack his hand from work ; for he that doeth 
the will of God may defy hell itself to quench his immortality." 

The prophetic anticipation of the end was unconsciously 
tinging his thoughts ; the burden and pain of life forced an 
utterance ; and still, in this last extract, we see how 



24 MEMOIR. 

bravely his faith bore him up, firm, bold, unshrinking, 
unto death. 

Mr. Robertson^s work was by no means confined to the 
pulpit. By the working men he was regarded as a frank 
and faithful friend. Already, in 1848, he was actively 
engaged with a Working Men's Institute, the idea of 
which had been early in his mind. It was intended for a 
poorer class than were embraced by the Athenasums and 
Mechanics' Institutes, and the subscription was only a 
penny a week. In October of that year, one thousand 
three hundred members were enrolled. They besought 
him to deliver the opening address, and their anxiety over- 
came his objections. No one who has carefully perused 
that address can wonder at the affection the men bore to 
him, at the sway he held over their hearts, at the place 
his memory still freshly retains. For two years the Insti- 
tute had great success. A small section of the members 
then advocated the introduction of sceptical publications. 
The society was threatened with dissolution. Mr. Robert- 
son manfully came forward and delivered a second address, 
with the hope of restoring peace. '' Brother men, mem- 
bers of the Working Men's Institute," he began, " you 
asked me to stand by you at the hopeful beginning of your 
institution ; I could not desert you in the moment of 

danger, and the hour of your unpopularity I am 

here to identify myself in public again with you, — to say 
that your cause is my cause, and your failure my failure.'' 
The introduction of infidel prints was maintained on three 
grounds, — rights of free inquiry, rights of liberty, and 
rights of democracy. On these three he met its advocates 
with excellent sense, warm, honest feeling, and sound 
principle. But " the society," we learn, " failed to right 
itself; and in July, 1850, it was formally dissolved. He 
counselled a second experiment, and another society ; or 
rather, as he regarded it, the old one, purified by expert- 



MEMOIR. 25 

ence, rose into being.'' It forsook, greatly to his regret, 
the good old title of Working Men, and assumed that of 
Mechanics ; but it has flourished longer than its predeces- 
sor, and is still in full vigor. Politics, in the higher sense, 
had the same powerful attraction for Mr. Robertson that 
they had for Dr. Arnold. He took a deep interest in all 
national questions. Nor was his interest merely theoreti- 
cal. In every movement in Brighton connected with 
social life and progress he was active and prominent. 
And on one social question, which underlies all others, 
the relation of classes, — the adjustment of the rights of 
the rich and the rights of the poor, — he spoke with a 
wisdom, and courage, and love, which had a notable influ- 
ence in his own sphere, and from which we may now hope 
for far wider and even more permanent results. 

In 1852, Mr. Robertson delivered to the members of the 
Mechanics' Institution two Lectures on the Influence of 
Poetry on the Working Classes. They are necessarily 
brief, but every line is suggestive. We do nrot know that 
there is anywhere so true an estimate of our modern poe- 
try ; while the exquisite snatches of criticism on Shakes- 
peare, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, reveal a power which, 
in these days of hasty reading, and flippant, shallow remark, 
we can ill afibrd to lose. Early in the spring of 1853, he 
followed up this subject by a remarkable lecture on the 
poetry of his favorite Wordsworth. The lecture was 
never published. It was preserved only in the notes of a 
reporter. But, did our space permit, we could not forbear 
quoting from that source, imperfect as it is, his fine per- 
ception of Wordsworth's calling, the relation he bore to 
the mighty heart of the nation. He reviewed the qualifi- 
cations necessary for appreciating Wordsworth's poetry^ 
his character and life, so far as they bear upon it. He 
reserved for another opportunity what he considered more 
important than either, — the question of how far Words- 
3 



26 MEMOIR. 

worth's theories and principles are true, how far exagger- 
ated; and how far he worked them out. That opportunity 
never came. During the lecture his friends remarked with 
alarm the hectic flush that rose upon his cheek, the evident 
effort by which the will triumphed over bodily suffering. 
" His exertions in the pulpit were at this period almost 
overpowering, and the intense study to which he had long 
accustomed himself became agonizing in the extreme." 
Before April he was compelled to relinquish his duties for 
a time, and seek change of air and relaxation. The end 
was drawing near. 

Slightly recruited, but unwilling to remain longer from 
his post, he returned to Brighton in the third week of his 
leave. The effort was too great. With failing health and 
increasing pain, he continued to discharge every duty of 
his office. The congregation sought assistance for him ; 
the vicar did not approve of the man they selected, and 
refused to appoint him. Alone, and " sinking rapidly,'' 
Mr. Robertson struggled on, a spectacle of quiet, unselfish 
heroism that might well shame many a brother of the 
cross. One week, his sufferings became rapidly more 
acute ; his preparation for the coming Sunday laid on him 
the burden of a sharper agony. He gave way, at last. 
That Sunday a stranger took his place.* He never 
preached again. He lingered in his room for two months 
in the torture of an excruciating disease. He bore it with- 
out a murmur, with calm resignation to His will who chas- 
tens those He loves. He constantly assured those about 
him of his happiness and peace. He had penetrated the 
meaning of the Saviour's life ; he was to follow Him 
through agony and death. 

On Sunday, the 15th of August, the congregation knelt 
before God in supplication for their dying pastor. That 

* By a singular coincidence, the stranger was ArcMeacon Williams, 
his former rector, who occupied the pulpit from this time till Mr. Robert- 
son's death, and preached the Afternoon Funeral Sermon. 



MEMOIR. 27 

day six years before, they had felt for the first time the 
spell of his holy earnestness, they had sat entranced by 
the eloquent truth that flowed from his lips. During the 
day he was able to recline upon a sofa before an open win- 
dow ; towards night he grew suddenly worse. The pain 
was intense. He could not speak, save at intervals, when 
he cried, feebly, "My Grod, my God, — my Father, my 
Father." The yearning of his heart was soon fulfilled. 
His attendants sought to change his position. " I cannot 
bear it," he said ; "let me rest. I must die. Let God do 
His work." They were the last words he spoke. In a few 
minutes the lips that uttered them were sealed in death. 

There remains little more to be told. At Brighton there 
was profound and general sorrow. On the day of the 
funeral the shops were closed, the houses were in mourn- 
ing. Strangers who had arrived inquired if one of the 
royal family was dead. Headed by one thousand five 
hundred of those who well remembered the address of 
" Brother men and fellow-workmen," the melancholy cor- 
tege wound through a crowd extending for more than a 
mile. 

** And women's tears fell fast as rain, 
And rough men shook with inward pain 
For him they ne'er should see again." 

But there was one quiet, unnoticed mourning, more touch- 
ing than the crowds of the procession, or the solemn awe 
that hushed the streets. In the gray dawn of the morning 
after the funeral, a group was seen weeping over the new 
grave. It was a mechanic, with his wife and children, 
dressed in such emblems of woe as they could afi'ord. 
When Mr. Kobertson came to Brighton, that man and his 
wife were rank infidels. One day, as he passed Trinity 
Chapel, he thought he would go in to hear what the new 
preacher had to say. The word was blessed to his salva- 
tion. He became a constant worshipper, and brought 
others to listen to the same teaoher. We dare add noth- 



28 MEMOIR. 

ing to this. To those who can feel, it is more eloquent 
than words. 

A monument to Mr. Robertson has been raised in Brigh- 
ton Cemetery. The working men sought to have a share 
in it. On one side they erected, *'in grateful remembrance 
of his sympathy, and in deep sorrow for their loss,'' * 
a medallion, representing ''their benefactor" seated in 
his library, in earnest conversation with three artisans. 
Within the railing of the monument there is a plot of gar- 
den ground. The same men asked and received permis- 
sion to keep it free from weeds, and to supply it with fresh 
flowers. 

^P 5|C 5jC ?j? JjC ^C 'f^ 3|C 

There are no materials for an exciting biography. There 
is an absence of striking incidents. But there is the 
power of a single, earnest, considerate life. Bare though 
it is, we cannot think of it unmoved. Nay, its very sim- 
ple modesty, in contrast with the great results that have 
followed it, the great fame that time is wreathing round 
it, is infinitely more impressive than the noise of a public 
triumph, or the stir and glare that surround a public 
name. It is the life that speaks to us from the silence of 
its retirement ; a voice to which all men, especially all 
clergymen, would do well to take heed. They will learn 
from it the hidden power of faith, the calm might that lies 
in communion with the truth, the nobleness and beauty 
and reward of a high self-sacrifice. They will learn from 
it to keep brave hearts when the clouds settle on their 
life, to trust that God will do His work, though not per- 
haps till their day is past; they will learn to hold steadfast 
by their work, though pain and sorrow are knocking 
loudly at the door ; they will utter with the thankfulness 
of full hearts the aspiration engraved upon his tomb, 
•'Glory to the Saviour who was his all!" — Edinburgh 
Christian Magazine. 

* The words are taken from the inscription. 



SERMONS. 



I. 

[Preached June 22, 1851.] 

CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE.* 

Luke xii. 13-15. — " And one of the company said unto him, Master, 
speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he 
said unto him, Man, who made me a judge, or a divider over you ? 
And he said unto them. Take heed, and beware of covetousness : for 
a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth." 

The Son of God was misunderstood and misinter- 
preted in his day. With this fact we are familiar; 
but we are not all familiar with the consideration 
that it was very natural He should be so mistaken. 

He went about Galilee and Judea proclaiming the 
downfall of every injustice, the exposure and confuta- 
tion of every lie. He denounced the lawyers who 
refused education to the people in order that they 
might retain the key of knowledge in their own hands. 
He reiterated Woe I woe ! woe ! to the Scribqs and 

* This Sermon was accidentally omitted from its proper place after the 

17th Sermon in Vol. I. — "The Message of the Church to Men of 

Wealth." It was preached on the following Sunday, and is the sequel to 

that Sermon. 

3* (29) 



30 Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 

Pharisees, who revered the past, and systematically 
persecuted every new prophet and every brave man 
who rose up to vindicate the spirit of the past against 
the institutions of the past. He spoke parables which 
bore hard on the men of wealth. That, for instance, 
of the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine 
hnen, and fared sumptuously every day ; who died, 
and in hell lifted up his eyes being in torments. That 
of the wealthy proprietor who prospered in the world ; 
who pulled down his barns to build greater: who all 
the while was in the sight of God a fool; who in front 
of judgment and eternity was found unready. He 
stripped the so-called religious party of that day of 
their respectability; convicted them, to their own 
astonishment, of hypocrisy, and called them whited 
sepulchres. He said God was against them ; that 
Jerusalem's day was come, and that she must fall. 

And now consider candidly : — Suppose that all this 
Iiad taken place in this country ; that an unknown 
stranger, with no ordination, with no visible authority, — 
basing his authority upon his Truth, and his agreement 
with the mind of God the Father, — had appeared in 
this England, uttering half the severe things He spoke 
against the selfishness of wealth, against ecclesiastical 
authorities, against the clergy, against the popular 
religious party : — suppose that such an one should say 
that our whole social life is corrupt and false: suppose 
that, instead of " thou blind Pharisee," the word had 
been ". thou blind Churchman ! " 

Should we have fallen at the feet of such an one, 
and said, Lo ! this is a message from Almighty God, 
and He who brings it is a Son of God ; perhaps, 
what He says Himself, His only Son, God, of God ? 



Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 31 

Or, should we have rather said, This is dangerous 
teaching, and revolutionary in its tendencies ; and He 
who teaches it is an incendiary, a mad, democratical, 
dangerous fanatic ? 

That was exactly what they did say of your Re- 
deemer in His day ; nor does it seem at all wonderful 
that they did. 

The sober, respectable inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
very comfortable themselves, and utterly unable to 
conceive why things should not go on as they had 
been going on for a hundred years, — not smarting 
from the misery and the moral degradation of the 
lazars with whom He associated, and under whose 
burdens His loving spirit groaned, — thought it excess- 
ively dangerous to risk the subversion of their quiet 
enjoyments by such outcries. They said — prudent 
men ! — If he is permitted to go on this way, the 
Romans will come and take away our place and nation. 
The Priests and Pharisees, against whom he had spoken 
specially, were fiercer still. They felt there was no 
time to be lost. 

But, still more — His own friends and followers mis 
understood Him. 

They heard Him speak of a Kingdom of Justice 
and Righteousness, in which every man should receive 
the due reward of his deeds. They heard him say 
that this kingdom was not far off, but actually among 
them, hindered only by their sins and dulness from 
immediate appearance. Men's souls were stirred and 
agitated. They were ripe for anything, and any 
spark would have produced explosion. They thought 
the next call would be to take the matter into their 
own hands. 



32 Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 

Accordingly, on one occasion, St. John and St. 
James asked permission to call down fire from heaven 
upon a village of the Samaritans which would not 
receive their message. On another .occasion, on a 
single figurative mention of a sword, they began to 
gird themselves for the struggle: "Lord," said one, 
" behold, here are two swords." Again, as soon as 
He entered Jerusalem for the last time, the populace 
heralded his way with shouts, thinking that the long- 
delayed hour of retribution was come at last. They 
saw the conqueror before them who was to vindicate 
their wrongs. In imagination they already felt their 
feet upon the necks of their enemies. 

And because their hopes were disappointed, and 
He was not the Demagogue they wanted, therefore 
they turned against Him. Not the Pharisees, but the 
people whom He had come to save, — the outcast, and 
the publican, and the slave, and the maid-servant : they 
whose cause He had so often pleaded, and whose 
emancipation he had prepared. It was the Peojple who 
cried, " Crucify Him, Crucify Him ! " 

This will become intelligible to us, if we can get 
at the spirit of this passage. 

Among those who heard Him lay down the laws 
of the Kingdom — Justness, Fairness, Charity — there 
was one who had been defrauded, as it seems, by his 
brother, of his just share of the patrimony. He 
thought that the One who stood before him was 
exactly what he wanted : — a redresser of wrongs ; a 
champion of the oppressed ; a divider and arbiter 
between factions ; a referee of lawsuits ; one who 
would spend his life in the unerring decision of all mis- 
understandings. 



CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE. 33 

To his astonishment, the Son of Man refused to inter- 
fere in his quarrel, or take part in it at all. " Man, who 
made me a judge, or a divider over you ? " 

We ask attention to two things. 

I. The Saviour's refusal to interfere. 

II. The source to which He traced the appeal for 
interference. 

I. The Saviour's refusal to interfere. 

1. He implied that it was not his part to interfere. 
'' Who made me a Judge, or a Divider ? " 

It is a common saying, that religion has nothing to 
do with politics; and particularly there is a strong feel- 
ing current against all interference with politics by the 
ministers of religion. This notion rests on a basis 
which is partly wrong, partly right. 

To say that religion has nothing to do with politics, 
is to assert that which is simply false. It were as 
wise to say that the atmosphere has nothing to do with 
the principles of architecture. Directly, nothing — 
indirectly, much. Some kinds of stone are so friable, 
that though they will last for centuries in a dry climate, 
they will crumble away in a few years in a damp one. 
There are some temperatures in which a form of build- 
ing is indispensable which in another would be un- 
bearable. The shape of doors, windows, apartments, 
all depend upon the air that is to be admitted or ex- 
cluded. Nay, it is for the very sake of procuring a 
habitable atmosphere within certain limits that archi- 
tecture exists at all. The atmospheric laws are dis- 
tinct from the laws of architecture ; but there is 
not an architectural question into which atmospheric 



34 Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 

considerations do not enter as conditions of the ques- 
tion. 

That which the air is to architeture, rehgion is to 
pohtics. It is the vital air of every question. Directly 
it determines nothing — indirectly, it conditions every 
problem that can arise. " The kingdoms of this world 
must become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
Christ." How, if His Spirit is not to mingle with 
political and social truths ? 

Nevertheless, in the popular idea that religion as 
such must not be mixed with politics there is a pro- 
found truth. Here, for instance, the Saviour will not 
meddle with the question. He stands aloof, sublime 
and dignified. It was no part of His to take from the 
oppressor and give to the oppressed, much less to en- 
courage the oppressed to take from the oppressor him- 
self It was His part to forbid oppression. It was a 
Judge's part to decide what oppression was. It was 
not His office to determine the boundaries of civil 
right, nor to lay down the rules of the descent of prop- 
erty. Of course, there was a spiritual and moral prin- 
ciple involved in this question. But He would not 
suffer His sublime mission to degenerate into the mere 
task of deciding casuistry. 

He asserted principles of love, unselfishness, order, 
which would decide all questions ; but the questions 
themselves He would not decide. He would lay down 
the great political principle, " Render unto Caesar the 
things that be Csesar's, and unto Grod the things which 
are God's." But He would not determine whether this 
particular tax was due to Csesar or not. 

So, too, He would say, Justice, like Mercy and Tru*H 



CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE. 35 

is one of the weightier matters of the law ; but He 
would not decide whether, in this definite case, this or 
that brother had justice on his side. It was for them- 
selves to determine that, and in that determination lav 
their responsibility. 

And thus religion deals with men, not cases ; with 
human hearts, not casuistry. 

Christianity determines general principles, out of 
which no doubt the best government would surely 
spring ; but what the best government is it does not 
determine — whether Monarchy or a Republic, an Aris- 
tocracy or a Democracy. 

It lays down a great social law : Masters, give unto 
your servants that which is just and equal. But it is 
not its part to declare how much is just and equal. It 
has no fixed scale of wages according to which masters 
must give. That it leaves to each master, and each age 
of society. 

It binds up men in a holy brotherhood. But what 
are the best institutions .and surest means for arriving 
at this brotherhood it has not said. In particular, it 
has not pronounced whether competition or coopera- 
tion will secure it. 

And hence it comes4o pass that Christianity is the 
Eternal Religion, which can never become obsolete. If 
it sets itself to determine the temporary and the local, — 
the justice of this tax, or the exact wrongs of that con- 
ventional maxim, — it would soon become obsolete: it 
would be the religion of one century, not of all. As it 
is, it commits itself to nothing except Eternal Prin- 
ciples. 

It is not sent into this world to establish monarchy, 
or secure the franchise ; to establish socialism, or to 



36 Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 

frown it into annihilation ; but to establish a Charity, 
and a Moderation, and a sense of Duty, and a love of 
Right, which will modify hnman life according to any 
circumstances that can possibly arise. 

2. In this refusal, again, it was implied that His 
kingdom was one founded on spiritual disposition, not 
one of outward Law and Jurisprudence. 

That this lawsuit should have been decided by the 
brothers themselves, in love, with mutual fairness, 
would have been much ; that it should be determined 
by authoritative arbitration was, spiritually speaking, 
nothing. The right disposition of their hearts, and the 
right division of their property thence resulting, was 
Christ's kingdom. The apportionment of their prop- 
erty by another's division had nothing to do with His 
kingdom. 

Suppose that both were wrong : one oppressive, the 
other covetous. Then, that the oppressor should be- 
come generous, and the covetous liberal, were a great 
gain. But, to take from one selfish brother in order to 
give to another selfish brother, what spiritual gain 
would there have been in this ? 

Suppose, again, that the retainer of the inheritance 
was in the wrong, and that the petitioner had justice 
on his side ; that he was a humble, meek man, and his 
petition only one of right. Well, to take the property 
from the unjust and give it to Christ's servant, might 
be, and was, the duty of a Judge. But it was not 
Christ's part, nor any gain to the cause of Christ. He 
does not reward His servants w4th inheritances — with 
lands, houses, gold. " The kingdom of Grod is not 
meat and drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and joy 
in the Holy Ghost." Christ triumphs by wrongs meekl}' 



CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE. 37 

borne, even more than by wrongs legally righted. 
What we call poetical justice is not His kingdom. 

To apply this to the question of the day. The great 
problem which lies before Europe for solution is, or 
will be, this : Whether the present possessors of the 
soil have an exclusive right to do what they will with 
their own; or whether a larger claim may be put in by 
the workman for a share in the profits ? Whether Cap- 
ital has hitherto given to Labor its just part or not ? 
Labor is at present making an appeal, like that of this 
petitioner, to the Church, to the Bible, to God. " Mas- 
ter, speak unto my brother, that he divide the inherit- 
ance with me.'^ 

Now, in the mere setting of that question to rest, 
Christianity is not interested. That landlords should 
become more liberal, and employers more merciful, — 
that tenants should be more honorable, and workmen 
more unselfish, — that would be indeed a glorious thing, 
a triumph of Christ's cause ; and any arrangement 
of the inheritance thence resulting would be a real 
coming of the kingdom. But whether the soil of the 
country and its capital shall remain the property of 
the rich, or become more available for the poor, — the 
rich and the poor remaining as selfish as before ; — 
whether the selfish rich shall be able to keep, or the 
selfish poor to take, is a matter, religiously speaking, 
of profound indifference. Which of the brothers shall 
have the inheritance, the monopolist or the covetous? 
Either — neither ; who cares ? Fifty years hence, what 
will it matter ? But a hundred thousand years hence 
it will matter whether they settled the question by 
mutual generosity and forbearance. 

3. I remark a third thing. He refused to be the 
4 



38 Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 

friend of one, because He was the friend of both. He 
never was the champion of a class, because He was 
the champion of Humanity. 

We may take for granted that the petitioner was 
an injured man, — one, at all events, who thought him- 
self injured; and Christ had often taught the spirit 
which would have made his brother right him : but He 
refused to take his part against his brother, just be- 
cause he was his brother, Christ's servant, and one of 
God's family, as well as he. 

And this was His spirit always. The Pharisees 
thought to commit Him to a side, when they asked 
whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not. 
But He would take no side as the Christ : neither the 
part of the government against the tax-payers, nor 
the part of the tax-payers against the government. 

Now, it is a common thing to hear of the rights of 
man, — a glorious and a true saying; but, as commonly 
used, the expression only means the rights of a sec- 
tion or class of men. And it is very worthy of 
remark, that in these social quarrels both sides appeal 
to Christ and to the Bible as the champions of their 
rights, precisely in the same way in which this man 
appealed to Him. One class appeal to the Bible, as if 
it were the great Arbiter which decrees that the poor 
shall be humble, and the subject submissive ; and the 
other class appeal to the same book triumphantly, as if 
't were exclusively on their side : its peculiar blessed- 
aess consisting in this — that it commands the rich to 
livide the inheritance, and the ruler to impose nothing 
'hat is unjust. 

In either of these cases, Christianity is degraded, 
&nd the Bible misused. They are not as they have 



Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 39 

been made — shame ! — for centuries, the servile de- 
fenders of Rank and Wealth, nor are they the pliant 
advocates of discontent and rebellion. 

The Bible takes neither the part of the poor against 
the rich exclusively, nor that of the rich against the 
poor ; and this because it proclaims a real, deep, true, 
and not a revolutionary brotherhood. 

The brotherhood of which we hear so much is often 
only a one-sided brotherhood. It demands that the 
rich shall treat the poor as brothers. It has a right to 
do so. It is a brave and a just demand : but it forgets 
that the obligation is mutual ; that, in spite of his many 
faults, the rich man is the poor man's brother, and that 
the poor man is bound to recognize him and feel for 
him as a brother. 

It requires that every candid allowance shall be 
made for the vices of the poorer classes, in virtue of 
the circumstances which, so to speak, seem to make 
such vices inevitable : for their harlotry, their drunken- 
ness, their uncleanness, their insubordination. Let it 
enforce that demand ; it may and must do it in the 
name of Christ. He was mercifully and mournfuUy 
gentle to those who, through terrible temptation and 
social injustice, had sunk; and sunk into misery at 
least as much as into sin. But, then, let it not be for- 
gotten that some sympathy must be also due, on the 
same score of circumstances, to the rich man. Wealth 
has its temptations, — so has power. The vices of the 
rich are his forgetfulness of responsibility, his indo- 
lence, his extravagance, his ignorance of wretched- 
ness. These must be looked upon, not, certainly, with 
weak excuses, but with a brother's eye, by the poor 
man, if he will assert a brotherhood. It is not just to 



40 cheist's judgment respecting intieritance. 

attribute all to circumstances in the one case, and 
nothing in the other. It is not brotherhood to say 
that the laborer does wrong because he is tempted, 
and the man of wealth because he is intrinsically bad. 

II. The Source to which He traced this appeal for 
a division. 

Now, it is almost certain that the reflection which 
arose to the lips of Christ is not the one which would 
have presented itself to us under similar circum- 
stances. We should probably have sneered at the 
state of the law in which a lawsuit could obtain no 
prompt decision, and injury get no redress : or, we 
should have remarked upon the evils of the system of 
primogeniture, and asked whether it were just that one 
brother should have all, and the others none : or, we 
might, perhaps, have denounced the injustice of per- 
mitting privileged classes at all. 

He did nothing of this kind : He did not sneer at 
the law, nor inveigh against the system, nor denounce 
the privileged classes. He went deeper — to the very 
root of the matter. ^^ Take heed, and beware of covet- 
ousness." It was covetousness which caused the un- 
just brother to withhold; it was covetousness which 
made the defrauded brother indignantly complain to a 
stranger. It is covetousness which is at the bottom 
of aU lawsuits, all social grievances, all political fac- 
tions. So St. James traces the genealogy. "From 
whence come wars and fightings among you? Come 
they not hence, even from your lusts which reign in 
your flesh?" 

Covetousness: the covetousness of all. Of the 
oppressed as well as the oppressor; for the cry, 



Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 41 

" Divide," has its root in covetousness just as trulj' as 
"I will not." There are no innocent classes; no 
devils who oppress, and angels who are oppressed. 
The gnilt of a false social state must be equally 
divided. 

We will consider somewhat more deeply this covet- 
ousness. In the original the word is a very expressive 
one. It means the desire of having more, — not of 
having more because there is not enough, but simply 
a craving after more. More when a man has not 
enough, — more when he has. More — more. Ever 
more. Give — give. Divide — Divide. 

This craving is not universal. Individuals and 
whole nations are without it. There are some na- 
tions the condition of whose further civilization is 
that the desire of accumulation be increased. They, 
are too indolent or too unambitious to be covetous. 
Energy is awakened when wants are immediate, press- 
ing, present ; but ceases with the gratification. 

There are other nations in which the craving is ex- 
cessive, even to disease. Preeminent among these is 
England. This desire of accumulation is the source 
of all our greatness and all our baseness. It is at 
once our glory and our shame. It is the cause of our 
commerce, of our navy, of our military triumphs, of 
our enormous wealth, and our marvellous inventions. 
And it is the cause of our factions and animosities, of 
our squalid pauperism, and the worse than heathen 
degradation of the masses of our population. 

That which makes this the more marvellous is, that 
of all nations on the earth none are so incapable of 
enjoyment as Ave. God has not given to us that 
delicate development which He has given to other 



42 CHRIST'S JUDGMENT EESPECTING INHERITANCE. 

races. Our sense of harmony is dull and rare : out 
perception of beauty is not keen. An English holi- 
day is rude and boisterous. If protracted, it ends 
in ennui and self-dissatisfaction. We cannot enjoy. 
Work, the law of human nature, is the very need of 
an English nature. That cold shade of Puritanism 
which passed over us, sullenly eclipsing all grace and 
enjoyment, was but the shadow of our own melan- 
choly, unenjoying national character. 

And yet we go on accumulating, as if we could 
enjoy more by having more. To quit the class in 
which they are, and rise into that above, is the yearly, 
daily, hourly effort of millions in this land. And this 
were well, if this word " above " implied a reality ; if 
it meant higher intellectually, morally, or even physi- 
cally. But the truth is, it is only higher fictitiously. 
The middle classes already have every real enjoyment 
which the wealthiest can have. The only thing they 
have not is the ostentation of the means of enjoy- 
ment. More would enable them to multiply equipages, 
houses, books : it could not enable them to enjoy them 
more. 

Thus, then, we have reached the root of the matter. 
Our national craving is, in the proper meaning of the 
term, covetousness. Not the desire of enjoying more, 
but the desire of having more. 

And if there be a country, a society, a people, to 
whom this warning is specially applicable, that coun- 
try is England, that society our own, that people we. 
" Take heed and beware of covetousness." 

The true remedy for this covetousness He then pro- 
ceeds to give. ^' A man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesses." 



Christ's judgment respecting inheritance. 43 

Now, observe the distinction between His view and 
the world's view of humanity. To the question, What 
is a man worth? the world replies by enumerating 
what he has. In reply to the same question, the Son 
of Man replies by estimating what he is. Not What 
lie has, but what he is — that, through time and through 
eternity, is his real and proper life. He declared the 
presence of the soul ; He announced the dignity of 
the spiritual man ; He revealed the being that we are. 
Not that which is supported by meat and drink, but 
that whose very life is in Truth, Integrity, Honor, 
Purity. " Skin for skin," was the satanic version of this 
matter : " All that a man hath will he give for his Z^/e." 
'' What shall it profit a man," was the Saviour's an- 
nouncement, " if he shall gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul ? " 

For the oppressed and the defrauded this was the 
true consolation and compensation. The true conso- 
lation. This man had lost so much loss. Well ; how 
is he consoled ? By the thought of retaliation ? By 
the promise of revenge ? By the assurance that he 
shall have what he ought by right to have ? Nay ; but 
thus — as it were : Thou hast lost so much, but thyself 
remains. " A man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things which he possesses," 

Most assuredly Christianity proclaims laws which 
will eventually give to each man his rights. I do not 
deny this. But I say that the hope of these rights is 
not the message, nor the promise, nor the consolation, 
of Christianity. Rather they consist in the assertion 
of the true Life, instead of all other hopes ; of the 
substitution of blessedness, which is inward character, 
for happiness, which is outward satisfactions of desire. 



44 CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE. 

For the broken-hearted, the peace which the world 
cannot give. For the poor, the Hfe which destitution 
cannot take away. For the persecuted, the thought 
that they are the children of their Father which is in 
heaven. 

A very striking instance of this is found in the con- 
solation offered by St. Paul to slaves. How did he 
reconcile them to their lot? By promising that Chris- 
tianity would produce the abolition of the slave-trade? 
No ; though this was to be effected by Christianity ; 
but by assuring them that, though slaves, they might 
be inly free — Christ's freedmen. Art thou called, 
being a slave ? Care not for it. 

This, too, was the real compensation offered by 
Christianity for injuries. 

The other brother had the inheritance ; and to win 
the inheritance he had laid upon his soul the guilt of 
injustice. His advantage was the property ; the price 
he paid for that advantage was a hard heart. The in- 
jured brother had no inheritance, but instead he had, 
or might have had, innocence, and the conscious joy 
of knowing that he was not the injurer. Herein lay 
the balance. 

Now, there is great inconsistency between the com- 
plaints and claims that are commonly made on these 
subjects. There are outcries against the insolence 
of power, and the hard-hearted selfishness of wealth. 
Only too often these cries have a foundation of jus- 
tice. But be it remembered that these are precisely 
the cost at which the advantages, such as they are, 
are purchased. The price which the man in authority 
has paid for power is the temptation to be insolent. 
He has yielded to the temptation, and bought his 



CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERITANCE. 45 

advantage dear. The price which the rich man pays 
for his wealth is the temptation to be selfish. They 
have paid in spirituals for what they have gained in 
temporals. Now, if you are crying for a share in that 
wealth, and a participation in that power, you must be 
content to run the risk of becoming as hard, and self- 
ish, and overbearing, as the man whom you denounce. 
Blame their sins, if you will, or despise their advan- 
tages ; but do not think that you can covet their ad- 
vantages and keep clear of their temptations. God is 
on the side of the poor, and the persecuted, and the 
mourners, — a light in darkness, and a life in death. 
But the poverty, and the persecution, and the dark- 
ness, are the condition on which they feel God's pres- 
ence. They must not expect to have the enjoyment 
of wealth and the spiritual blessings annexed to pov- 
erty at the same time. If you will be rich, you must 
be content to pay the price of falling into temptation, 
and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
drown men in perdition ; and if that price be too high 
to pay, then you must be content with the quiet val- 
leys of existence, where alone it is well with us ; kept 
out of the inheritance, but having instead God for 
your portion, your aE-sufficient and everlasting por- 
tion — peace, and quietness, and rest with Christ. 



II. 

[Preached January 6, 1850.] 

THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

Matt. ii. 1, 2. — *' Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, 
in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the 
east to Jerusalem, saying. Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship 
him." 

Our subject is the Manifestation of Christ to the 
Gentiles. The King of the Jews has become the 
Sovereign of the world ; a fact, one would think, 
which must cause a secret complacency in the heart 
of all Jews. For that which is most deeply working 
in modern life and thought is the Mind of Christ. His 
name has passed over our institutions, and much more 
has His Spirit penetrated into our social and domestic 
existence. In other words, a Hebrew mind is now, 
and has been for centuries, ruling Europe. 

But the Gospel which He proclaimed was not lim- 
ited to the Hebrews ; it was a Gospel for the nations. 
By the death of Christ, God had struck his death- 
blow at the root of the hereditary principle. " We 
be the seed of Abraham," was the proud pretension 
of the Israelite ; and he was told that spiritual dignity 
rests not upon spiritual descent, but upon spiritual 

(46) 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 47 

character. New tribes were adopted into tlie Chris- 
tian union ; and it became clear that there was no 
distinction of race in the spiritual family. The Jew- 
ish rite of circumcision, a symbol of exclusiveness, 
cutting off one nation from all others, was exchanged 
for Baptism, the symbol of universality, proclaiming 
the nearness of all to God, His Paternity over the 
human race, and the Sonship of all who chose to 
claim their privileges. 

This was a Gospel for the world ; and nation after 
nation- accepted it. Churches were formed ; the King- 
dom which is the domain of Love grew ; the Roman 
empire crumbled into fragments ; but every fragment 
was found pregnant with life. It broke not as some 
ancient temple might break, its broken pieces lying in 
lifeless ruin, overgrown with weeds : rather as one of 
those mysterious animals break, of which if you rend 
them asunder, every separate portion forms itself into 
a new and complete existence. Rome gave way ; 
but every portion became a Christian kingdom, alive 
with the mind of Christ, and developing the Christian 
idea after its own peculiar nature. 

The portion of Scripture selected for the text and 
for the Gospel of the day has an important bearing 
on this great Epiphany. The " wise men " belonged 
to a creed of very hoary and venerable antiquity ; a 
system, too, which had in it the elements of strong 
vitality. For seven centuries after, the Mahometan 
sword scarcely availed to extirpate it, — indeed, could 
not. They whom the Mahometans called fire-worship- 
pers clung to their creed with vigor and tenacity 
indestructible, in spite of all his efforts. 

Here, then, in this act of homage to the Messiah, 



48 THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

were the representatives of the highest then existing 
influences of the world, doing homage to the Lord of 
a mightier influence, and reverently bending before 
the dawn of the Star of a new and brighter Day. It 
was the first distinct turning of the Gentile mind to 
Christ — the first instinctive craving after a something 
higher than Gentilism could ever satisfy. 

In this light our thoughts arrange themselves thus : 

I. The expectation of the Gentiles. 

II. The Manifestation or Epiphany. 

I. The expectation : " Where is He that is born 
King of the Jews ? for we have seen His star in the 
east, and are come to worship Him." 

Observe, 1. The craving for Eternal Life. The 
" wise men " were ^' Magians," that is, Persian priests. 
The name, however, was extended to all the eastern 
philosophers who professed that religion, or even that 
philosophy. The Magians were chiefly distinguished 
by being worshippers of the stars, or students of 
astronomy. 

Now, astronomy is a science which arises from man's 
need of religion: other sciences spring out of wants 
bounded by this life. For instance, anatomy presup- 
poses disease. There would be no prying into our 
animal frame, no anatomy, were there not a malady to 
stimulate the inquiry. Navigation arises from the 
necessity of traversing the seas to appropiiate the 
produce of other countries. Charts, and maps, and 
soundings, are made, because of a felt earthly want. 
But in astronomy the first impulse of mankind came 
not from the craving of the inteflect, but from the 
necessities of the soul. 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 49 

If you search down into the constitution of your 
being till you come to the lowest deep of all, underly- 
ing all other wants you will find a craving for what is 
infinite ; a something that desires perfection ; a wish 
that nothing but the thought of that which is eternal 
can satisfy. To the untutored mind nowhere was that 
want so called into consciousness, perhaps, as beneath 
the mighty skies of the East. Serene and beautiful 
are the nights in Persia, and many a wise man in earher 
days, full of deep thoughts, went out into the fields, 
like Isaac, to meditate at eventide. God has so made 
us that the very act of looking up produces in us per- 
ceptions of the sublime. And then those skies in their 
calm depths mirroring that which is boundless in space 
and illimitable in time, with a silence profound as death 
and a motion gliding on forever, as if symbolizing 
eternity of life, — no wonder if men associated with 
them their highest thoughts, and conceived them to 
be the home of Deity. No wonder if an Eternal Des- 
tiny seemed to sit enthroned there. No wonder if 
they seemed to have in their mystic motion an invisi- 
ble sympathy with human life and its mysterious desti- 
nies. No wonder if he who best could read their laws 
was reckoned best able to interpret the duties of this 
life, and all that connects man with that which is invisi- 
ble. No wonder if in those devout days of young 
thought, science was only another name for religion, 
and the Priest of the great temple of the universe was 
also the Priest in the temple made with hands. As- 
tronomy was the religion of the world's youth. 

The Magians were led by the star to Christ ; their 
astronomy was the very pathway to their Saviour. 

Upon this I make one or two remarks. 
5 



60 THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

1. The folly of depreciating human wisdom. Of all 
vanities the worst is the vanity of ignorance. It is 
common enough to hear learning decried, as if it were 
an opposite of religion. If that means that science is 
not religion, and that the man who can calculate the 
motions of the stars may never have bowed his soul to 
Christ, it contains a truth. But if it means, as it often 
does, that learning is a positive encumbrance and hin- 
drance to religion, then it is as much as to say that the 
God of nature is not the G-od of Grace ; that the more 
you study the Creator's works, the further you remove 
from Himself; nay, we must go further, to be consist- 
ent, and hold, as most uncultivated and rude nations 
do, that the state of idiocy is nearest to that of inspi- 
ration. 

There are expressions of St. Paul often quoted as 
sanctioning this idea. He tells his converts to beware, 
" lest any man spoil you through philosophy." Where- 
upon we take for granted that modern philosophy is a 
kind of antagonist to Christianity. This is one instance 
out of many of the way in which an ambiguous word, 
misunderstood, becomes the source of infinite error. 
Let us hear St. Paul. He bids Timothy " beware of 
profane and old wives' fables." He speaks of " endless 
genealogies," " worshipping of angels," '^ intruding 
into those things which men have not seen." This 
was the philosophy of those days : a system of wild 
fancies spun out of the brain, — somewhat like what 
we might now call demonolatry ; but as different from 
philosophy as any two things can differ. 

They forget, too, another thing. Philosophy has 
become Christian; science has knelt to Christ. There 
is a deep significance in that homage of the Magians. 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 51 

For it in fact was but a specimen and type of that 
which science has been doing ever since. Tlie mind 
of Christ has not only entered into the Temple, and 
made it the house *of prayer: it has entered into the 
temple of science, and purified the spirit of philosophy. 
This is its spirit now, as expounded by its chief inter- 
preter : '' Man, the interpreter of Nature, knows noth- 
ing, and can do nothing, except that which Nature 
teaches him." What is this but science bending before 
the Child, becoming childlike, and, instead of project- 
ing its own fancies upon God's word, listening rever- 
ently to hear what it has to teach him ? In a similar 
spirit, too, spoke the greatest of philosophers, in words 
quoted in every child's book : *' I am but a child, pick- 
ing up pebbles on the shore of the great sea of 
Truth." 

! be sure all the universe tells of Christ and leads 
to Christ. Kightly those ancient Magians deemed, in 
believing that God was worshipped truly in that august 
temple. The stars preach the mind of Christ. Not as 
of old, when a mystic star guided their feet to Bethle- 
hem : but now, to the mind of the astronomer, they 
tell of Eternal Order and Harmony ; they speak of 
changeless law where no caprice reigns. You m?Ly 
calculate the star's return ; and to the day, and hour, 
and minute, it will be there. This is the fidelity of 
God. These mute masses obey the law impressed 
upon them by their Creator's Hand, unconsciously ; 
and that law is the law of their own nature. To un- 
derstand the laws of our nature, and consciously and 
reverently to obey them, that is the mind of Christ, the 
sublimest spirit of the Gospel. 

I remark again : This universe may be studied in an 



52 THE STAR m THE EAST. 

irreverent spirit. In Dan. ii. 48, we find the reverence 
which was paid to science. Daniel among the Chaldees 
was made chief of the wise men, that is, the first of the 
Magians ; and King Nebuchadnezzar bowed before 
him, with incense and oblations. In later days w^e find 
that spirit changed. Another king, Herod, commands 
the wise men to use their science for the purpose of 
letting him know where the Child was. In earlier 
times they honored the priest of nature : in later times 
they made use of him. 

Only by a few is science studied now in the sublime 
and reverent spirit of old days. A vulgar demand for 
utility has taken the place of that lowly prostration 
with which the world listened to the discoveries of 
truth. The discovery of some new and mighty agent, 
by which the east and west are brought together in a 
moment, awakens chiefly the emotion of delight in us 
that correspondence and travelling will be quickened. 
The merchant congratulates himself upon the speedier 
arrival of the news which will give him the start of his 
rivals, and enable him to out-race his competitors in 
the competition of wealth. Yet, what is this but the 
utilitarian spirit of Herod, seeing nothing more solemn 
in a mysterious star than the means whereby he might 
crush his supposed Rival? 

There is a spirit which believes that " godliness is 
gain," and aims at being godly for the sake of advan- 
tage ; which is honest, because honesty is the best 
policy; which says. Do right, and you will be the 
better — that is, the richer — for it. There is a spirit 
which seeks for wisdom simply as a means . to an 
earthly end, — and that often a mean one. This is a 
spirit rebuked by the nobler reverence of the earlier 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 63 

days of Magianism. Knowledge for its own pure sake. 
God for His own sake. Truth for the sake of truth. 
This was the reason for which, in earlier days, men 
read the aspect of the heavens. 

2. Next, in this craving of the Gentiles, we meet 
with traces of the yearning of the human soul for 
light. The Magian system was called the system of 
Light about seven centuries B. c. A great reformer 
(Zoroaster) had appeared, who either restored the sys- 
tem to its purity, or created out of it a new system. 
He said that Light is Eternal, — that the Lord of the 
Universe is Light ; but, because there was an eternal 
Light, fhere Avas also an eternal possibility of the ab- 
sence of Light. Light and Darkness, therefore, were 
the eternal principles of the universe, — not equal 
principles, but one the negation of the other. He 
taught that the soul of man needs light, — a light ex- 
ternal to itself, as well as in itself. As the eye cannot 
see in darkness, and is useless, so is there a capacity 
in the soul for light : but it is not itself light ; it needs 
the Everlasting light from outside itself. 

Hence the stars became worshipped as the symbols 
of this light. But by degrees these stars began to 
stand in the place of the Light Himself. This was 
the state of things in the days of these Magians. 

Magianism was now midway between its glory and 
its decline. For its glory we must go back to the 
days of Daniel, when a monarch felt it his privilege to 
do honor to the priest of Light ; when that priest 
was the sole medium of communication between 
Deity and man, and through him alone " Oromasdes '^ 
made his revelations known; when the law given 
by the Magian, revealed by the eternal stars, was 



54 THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

" the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth 
not." For its lowest degradation we must pass over 
about half a century from the time we are now con- 
sideHng, till we find ourselves in Samaria, in the 
presence of Simon the Magian. He gave himself out 
for the great power of God. He prostituted such 
powers and knowledge as he possessed to the object 
of making gain. Half dupe, half impostor, in him the 
noble system of light had sunk to petty charlatanism : 
Magianism had degenerated into Magic. 

Midway between these two periods, or rather nearer 
to the latter, stood the Magian of the text. There is 
a time in the history of every superstition when it is 
respectable, even deserving reverence, when men be- 
lieved it ; when it is in fact associated with the highest 
feelings that are in man, and the channel even for 
God's manifestation to the soul. And there is a time 
when it becomes less and less credible, when clearer 
science is superseding its pretensions ; and then is the 
period in which one class of men, like Simon, keep up 
the imposture : the priests, who will not let the old 
superstition die, but go on, half impostors, half 
deceived by the strong delusion wherewith they 
believe their own lie. Another class, like Herod, the 
wise men of the world, who patronize it for their own 
purposes, and make use of it as an engine of state. 
Another still, who turn from side to side, feeling with 
horror the old, and all that they held dear, crumbling 
away beneath them, — the ancient lights going out, — 
more than half suspecting the falsehood of all the rest, 
and, with an earnestness amounting almost to agony, 
leaving their own homes, and inquiring for fresh light. 

Such was the posture of these Magians. You can- 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 55 

not enter into their questions, or sympathize with their 
wants, unless you realize all this. For that desire for 
light is one of the most impassioned of our noble 
natures. The noble prayer of the ancient world 
(fv ^£ (puBL ical odeaaov^^ ^' Give light, and let us die : " can 
we not feel it? Light — light ! 0, if the result were 
the immediate realization of the old fable, and the 
blasting of the daring spirit in the moment of Revela- 
tion of its God, — yet give us light. The wish for 
light, the expectation of the manifestation of God, is 
the mystery which lies beneath the history of the 
whole ancient world. 

II. The Epiphany itself. 

1. They found a king. There is something very 
significant in the fact of that king being discovered 
as a child. The royal child was the answer to their 
desires. There are two kinds of monarchy, rule, or 
command. One is that of hereditary title ; the other 
is that of Divine Right. There are kings of men's 
making, and kings of God's making. The secret of 
that command which men obey involuntarily is sub 
mission of the ruler himself to law. And this is the. 
secret of the Royalty of the Humanity of Christ, 
No principle through all His Life is more striking, 
none characterizes it so peculiarly as His submission 
to another Will. " I came not to do mine own will, 
but the will of Him that sent me." — " The words 
which I speak, I speak not of myself." His commands 
are not arbitrary. They are not laws given on 
authority only : they are the eternal laws of our 
humanit}^, to which He Himself submitted ; the obe- 
dience to Avhich alone can make our being attain its 



56 THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

end. This is the secret of His kingship, — " He be- 
came obedient . . . wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted Him." 

And this is the secret of all influence, and all com- 
mand. Obedience to a law above you subjugates 
minds to you who never would have yielded to mere 
will. ^' Rule thyself, thou rulest all.'' 

2. Next, observe the adoration of the Magians — 
very touching and full of deep truth. The wisest of 
the world bending before the Child. Remember the 
history of Magianism. It began with awe, entering 
into this world beneath the serene skies of the East: 
in Wonder and Worship. It passed into priestcraft 
and scepticism. It ended in Wonder aud Adoration, as 
it had begun ; only with a truer and nobler meaning. 

This is but a representation of human life. '' Heaven 
lies around us in our infancy." The child looks on 
this world of God's as one, not many — all beautiful — 
wonderful — God's — the creation of a Father's hand. 
The man dissects, breaks it into fragments ; loses love 
and worship in speculation and reasoning ; becomes 
more manly, more independent, and less irradiated 
with a sense of the presence of the Lord of all ; till at 
last, after many a devious wandering, if he be one 
whom the Star of God is leading blind by a way he 
knows not, he begins to see all as one again, and God 
in all. Back comes the Childlike spirit once more in 
the Christianity of old age. We kneel before the 
Child ; we feel that to adore is greater than to reason ; 
to love, and worship, and believe, bring the soul nearer 
heaven than scientific analysis. The Child is nearer 
God than we. 

And this, too, is one of the deep sayings of Christ: 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 57 

" Except ye be converted and become as little chil- 
dren, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." 

3. Lastly, In that Epiphany we have to remark the 
Magians' joy. They had seen the star in the east. 
They followed it — it seemed to go out in dim obscur- 
ity. They went about inquiring: asked Herod, who 
could tell them nothing ; asked the scribes, who only 
gave them a vague direction. At last the star shone 
out once more, clear before them in their path. 
" When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceed- 
ing great joy.'^ 

Perhaps the hearts of some of us can interpret that. 
There are some who have seen the star that shone 
in earlier days go out — quench itself in black vapors 
or sour smoke. There are some who have followed 
many a star that turned out to be but an ignis fatuus, 
— one of those bright exhalations which hover over 
marshes and church-yards, and only lead to the cham- 
bers of the dead, or the cold, damp pits of disappoint- 
ment ; and, 0, the blessing of " exceeding joy," after 
following in vain, — after inquiring of the great men 
and learning nothing, of the religious men and find- 
ing little, — to see the Star at last resting over ''the 
place where the young Child lies;" — after groping 
the way alone, to see the star stand still, — to find that 
Eeligion is a thing far simpler than we thought ; that 
God is near us, that to kneel and adore is the noblest 
posture of the soul. For, whoever will follow with 
fidelity his own star, God will guide him aright. He 
spoke to the Magians by the star ; to the shepherds, by 
the melody of the heavenly host ; to Joseph, by a 
dream ; to Simeon, by an inward revelation. " Gold, 



58 THE STAR IN THE EAST. 

and frankincense, and myrrh," — these, and ten times 
these, were poor and cheap to give for that blessed 
certainty that the star of God is on before us. 
Two practical hints, in conclusion. 

1. A hint of immortality. That star is now looking 
down on the wise men's graves ; and if there be no 
life to come, then this is the confusion : that mass 
of inert matter is pursuing its way through space, 
and the minds that watched it, calculated its move- 
ments, were led by it through aspiring wishes to holy 
adorations, — those minds, more precious than a 
thousand stars, have dropped out of God's universe. 
And then God cares for mere material masses more 
than for spirits, which are the emanation and copy of 
Himself Impossible. " God is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living." God is the Father of our 
Spirits. Eternity and immeasurableness belong to 
thought alone. You may measure the cycles of that 
star by years and miles. Can you bring any measure- 
ment which belongs to time or space by which you 
can compute the length or breadth or the duration 
of one pure thought, one aspiration, one moment of 
love ? This is eternity. Nothing but thought can be 
immortal. 

2. Learn, finally, the truth of the Epiphany by 
heart. To the Jew it chiefly meant that the Gentile, 
too, could become the child of God. But to us? — 
Is that doctrine obsolete? Nay, it requires to be 
reiterated in this age as much as in any other. There 
is a spirit in all our hearts whereby we would monop- 
ohze God, conceiving Him an unapproachable Being, — 
whereby we may terrify other men outside our own 
pale, — instead of the Father that is near to all, whom 



THE STAR IN THE EAST. 59 

we have to approach, and whom to adore is blessed- 
ness. 

This is our Judaism : we do not believe in the 
Epiphany. We do not believe that God is the Father 
of the world ; we do not actually credit that He has a 
star for the Persian priest, and celestial melody for the 
Hebrew shepherd, and an unsyllabled voice for all the 
humble and inquiring spirits in His world. Therefore 
remember, Christ has broken down the middle wall 
of partition ; He has revealed Our Father, proclaimed 
that there is no distinction in the spiritual family and 
established a real Brotherhood on earth. 



III. 

[Preached February 10, 1850.] 

THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

Matt. ix. 23-25. — "And when Jesus came into the ruler's* house, and 
saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them. 
Give place ; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed 
him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and 
took her by the hand, and the maid arose." 

This is one of a pair of miracles, the full instruction 
from neither of which can be gained unless taken in 
connection with the other. 

On His way to heal the daughter of Jairus, the Son 
of Man was accosted by another sufferer, afflicted 
twelve years with an issue of blood. Humanly speak- 
ing, there were many causes which might have led to 
the rejection of her request. The case was urgent ; a 
matter of life and death ; delay might be fatal ; a few 
minutes might make all the difference between living 
and dying. Yet Jesus not only performed the mir- 
acle, but refused to perform it in a hurried way: 
paused to converse ; to inquire who had touched him ; 
to perfect the lesson of the whole. On His way to 
perform one act of Love, He turned aside to give His 

attention to another. 

(60) 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 61 

The practical lesson is this : There are many who 
are so occupied by one set of duties as to have no 
time for others : some whose life-business is the sup- 
pression of the slave-trade, — the amelioration of the 
state of prisons, — the reformation of public abuses. 
Right, except so far as they are monopolized by these, 
and feel themselves discharged from other obligations. 
The minister's work is spiritual ; the physician's, tem- 
poral. But, if the former neglect physical needs, or 
the latter shrink from spiritual opportunities on the 
plea that the cure of bodies, not of souls, is his work, 
so far they refuse to imitate their Master. 

He had an ear open for every tone of wail ; a heart 
ready to respond to every species of need. Specially 
the Redeemer of the soul, He was yet as emphatically 
the "Saviour of the body." He "taught the people;" 
but He did not neglect to multiply the loaves and 
fishes. The peculiar need of the woman, the father's 
cry of anguish, the infant's cry of helplessness, the 
wail of oppression, and the shriek of pain, — all were 
heard by Him, and none in vain. 

Therein lies the difference between Christian love 
and the impulse of mere inclinations. We hear of men 
being " interested " in a cause ; it has some peculiar 
charm for them individually: the wants of the heathen, 
or the destitution of the soldier and sailor, or the con- 
version of the Jews, according to men's associations, or 
fancies, or peculiar bias, may engage their attention, and 
monopolize their sympathy. I am far from saying these 
are wrong: I only say, that so far as they only interest j 
and monopolize interest, the source from which they 
spring is only human, and not the highest. The difler- 
euce between such beneficence and that which is 
6 



62 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

the result of Christian love is marked by partiality in 
one case, universality in the other Love is universal. 
It is interested in ail that is human : not merely in the 
concerns of its own family, nation, sect, or circle of 
associations. Humanity is the sphere of its activity. 

Here, too, we find the Son of Man the pattern of our 
humanity. His bosom was to mankind what the Ocean 
is to the world. The Ocean has its own mighty tide ; 
but it receives and responds to, in exact proportion, 
the tidal influences of every estuary, and river, and 
small creek, which pours into its bosom. So in Christ: 
His bosom heaved with the tides of our humanity ; 
but every separate sorrow, pain, and joy, gave its pul- 
sation, and received back influence from the sea of His 
being. 

Looking at this matter somewhat more closely, it 
will be plain that the delay was only apparent. 
Seemingly there was delay, and fatal delay : while he 
yet spake, there came news of the child's death. But 
just so far as the resurrection of the dead is a mightier 
miracle than the healing of the sick, just so far did the 
delay enhance and illustrate, instead of dimming, the 
glory of His mission. 

But more definitely still. The miracles of Jesus 
were not merely arbitrary acts ; they were subject to 
the laws of the spiritual world. It was, we may hum- 
bly say, impossible to convey a spiritual blessing to 
one who was not spiritually susceptibler A certain 
inwa,rd character, a certain relation (rapport) to the 
Bedeemer, was required to make the mercy efficacious. 
Hence in one place we read, '^ He could not do many 
miracles there because of their unbelief.'' And His 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. (jS 

perpetual question was, "Believest thou that I am able 
to do this ? " 

Now, Jairus beheld this miracle. He saw the 
woman's modest touch approaching the hem of the 
Saviour's garment. He saw the abashed look with 
which she shrunk from pubH_c gaze and exposure. He 
heard the language of Omniscience — ''Somebody hath 
touched me." He heard the great principle enunciated 
that the only touch which reaches God is that of Faith. 
The multitude may throng and press : but heart to 
heart, soul to soul, mind to mind, only so do we come 
in actual contact with God. And, remembering this, it 
is a matter not of probabihty, but of certainty, that 
the soul of Jairus was actually made more capable of 
a blessing than before ; that he must have walked with 
a more hopeful step ; that he must have heard the 
announcement, " Thy daughter is dead," with less 
dismay ; that the words, '' Fear not, only believe," 
must have come to him with deeper meaning, and 
been received with more implicit trust, than if Jesus 
had not paused to heal the woman, but hurried on. 

And this is the principle of the spiritual kingdom. 
In matters worldly, the more occupations, duties, a 
man has, the more certain is he of doing all imper- 
fectly. In the things of God, it is reversed. The 
more duties you perform, the more you are fitted for 
doing others : what you lose in time, you gain in 
strength. You do not love God the less, but the more, 
for loving man. You do not weaken your affection 
for your family by cultivating attachments beyond its 
pale, but deepen and intensify it. Kespect for the 
alien, tenderness for the heretic, do not interfere with, 
but rather strengthen, attachment to your own country 



64 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

and your own church. He who is most liberal in the 
case of a foreign famine, or a distant mission, will be 
found to have only learned more liberal love towards 
the poor and unspiritualized of his own land : so false 
is the querulous complaint that money is drained away 
by such calls, to the disadvantage of more near and 
juster claims. 

You do not injure one cause of mercy by turning 
aside to listen to the call of another. 

I. The uses of Adversity. 

IL The principles of a Miracle. 

I. The simplest and obvious use of sorrow is to 
remind of Grod. Jairus and the woman, like many 
others, came to Christ from a sense of want. It would 
seem that a certain shock is needed to bring us in con- 
tact with reality. We are not conscious of our 
breathing till obstruction makes it felt. We are not 
aware of the possession of a heart till some disease, 
some sudden joy or sorrow, rouses it into extraordi- 
nary action. And we are not conscious of the mighty 
cravings of our half Divine humanity, we are not 
aware of the God within us, till some chasm yawns 
which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of 
our affections forces us to become fearfully conscious 
of a need. 

And this, too, is the reply to a rebellious question 
which our hearts are putting perpetually : Why am I 
treated so ? Why is my health or my child taken 
from me ? What have I done to deserve this ? So 
Job passionately complained that God had set him up 
as a mark to empty His quiver on. 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 65 

The reply is, that gifts are granted to elicit our 
affections : they are resumed to elicit them still more ; 
for we never know the value of a blessing till it is 
gone. Health, children, — we must lose them before 
we know the love which they contain. 

However, we are not prepared to say that a charge 
might not, with some plausibility, be brought against 
the love of God, were no intimation ever given that 
God means to resume His blessings. That man may 
fairly complain of his adopted father, who has been 
educated as his own son, and, after contracting habits 
of extravagance, looking forward to a certain line of 
life, cultivating certain tastes, is informed that he is 
only adopted ; that he must part with these temporary 
advantages, and sink into a low^er sphere. It would be 
a poor excuse to say that all he had before him was so 
much gain, unmerited. It is enough to reply that 
false hopes were raised, and knowingly. 

Nay, the laws of countries sanction this. After a 
certain period, a title to property cannot be interfered 
with: if a right of way or road has existed, in the 
venerable language of the law, after a custom " where- 
of the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," 
no private right, however dignified, can overthrow 
the public claim. I do not say that a bitter feeling 
might not have some show of justice, if such were the 
case with God's blessings. 

But the truth is this : God confers His gifts with 
distinct reminders that they are His. He give? us for 
a season spirits taken out of His universe ; brings 
them into temporary contact with us ; and we call 
them father, mother, sister, child, friend. But, just as 
In some places, on one day in the year, the way or 
6* 



66 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

path is closed in order to remind the public that they 
pass by sufferance, and not by right, in order that no 
lapse of time may establish " adverse possession," so 
does God give warning to us. Every ache and pain, 
every wrinkle you see stamping itself on a parent's 
brow, every accident which reveals the uncertain 
tenure of life and possessions, every funeral bell that 
tolls, are only God's reminders that we are tenants 
at will, and not by right, — pensioners on the bounty 
of an hour. He is closing up the right of way, warn- 
ing fairly that what Ave have is lent, not given : His, 
not ours. His mercies are so much gain. The re- 
sumption of them is no injustice. Job learned that, 
too, by heart. " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Again, observe the misuse of sorrow. When He 
came to the house, He found the minstrels and peo- 
ple making a noise. In the East, not content with 
natural grief, they use artificial means to deepen and 
prolong it. Men and women make it a separate pro- 
fession to act as mourners, — to exhibit for hire the cus- 
tomary symbols and wail of grief, partly to soothe, and 
partly to rivet sorrow deeply, by expression of it. 

The South and North differ greatly from each other 
in this respect. The nations of the North restrain 
their grief, — affect the tearless eye and the stern look. 
The expressive South, and all the nations whose origin 
is from thence, are demonstrative in grief. They beat 
their breasts, tear their hair, throw dust upon their 
heads. It would be unwise were either to blame or 
ridicule the other, so long as each is true to Nature. 
Unwise for the nations of the South to deny the real 
iiy of the grief which is repressed and silent. Unjust 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 67 

in the denizen of the North, were he to scorn the 
violence of Southern grief, or call its uncontrollable 
demonstrations unmanly. Much must be allowed for 
temperament. 

These two opposite tendencies, however, indicate 
the two extremes into which men may fall in this mat- 
ter of sorrow. There are two ways in which we may 
defeat the purposes of God in grief — by forgetting it, 
or by over-indulging it. 

The world's way is to forget. It prescribes gayety 
as the remedy for woe ; banishes all objects which 
recall the past ; makes it the etiquette of feeling, even 
amongst near relations, to abstain from the mention of 
the names of the lost ; gets rid of the mourning weeds 
as soon as possible — the worst of all remedies for 
grief Sorrow, the discipline of the Cross, is the 
school for all that is highest in us. Self-knowledge, 
true power, all that dignifies humanity, are precluded, 
the moment you try to merely banish grief It is a 
touching truth that the Saviour refused the anodyne 
on the cross that would have deadened pain. He 
would not steep His senses in oblivion. He would 
not suffer one drop to trickle down the side of Hia 
Father's cup of anguish untasted. 

The other way is to nurse sorrow : nay, even our 
best affections may tempt us to this. It seems treason 
to those we have loved to be happy now. We sit be- 
neath the cypress ; we school ourselves to gloom. 
Romance magnifies the fidelity of the broken heart ; 
we refuse to be comforted. 

Now, all this must be done by effort, generally 
speaking. For God has so constituted both our hearts 
and the world that it is hard to prolong ^rief beyond 



68 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

a time. Say what we will, the heart has in it a sur. 
prisingj nay, a startling elasticity. It cannot sustain 
unalterable melancholy : and beside onr very pathway 
plants grow, healing and fall of balm. It is a sullen 
heart that can withstand the slow but sure influences 
of the morning sun, the summer day, the sky anti 
flowers, and the soothing power of human sym- 
pathy. 

We are meant to sorrow ; but " not as those without 
hope." The rule seems to consist in being simply 
natural. The great thing which Christ did was to call 
men back to simplicity and nature ; not to perverted, 
but original nature. He counted it no derogation of 
His manhood to be seen to weep. He thought it no 
shame to mingle with merry crowds. He opened His 
heart wide to all the genial and all the mournful im- 
pressions of this manifold life of ours. And this is 
what we have to do : be natural. Let God — that is, let 
the influences of G-od — freely play unthwarted upon 
the soul. Let there be no unnatural repression, no 
control of feeling by mere 03*0 rt. Let there be no 
artiflcial and prolonged grief, no " minstrels making a 
noise." Let great Nature have her way. Or, rather, 
feel that you are in a Father's world, and live in it 
with Him, frankly, in a free, fearless, childlike, and 
natural spirit. Then grief will do its work healthily. 
The heart will bleed, and stanch when it has bled 
enough. Do not stop the bleeding ; but also do not 
open the wound afresh. 

II. We come to the principles on which a Miracle 
rests. 

1. I observe that the perception of it was confined 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 69 

to a few. Peter, James, John, and the parents of the 
child, were the only ones present. The rest were 
excluded. To behold wonders, certain inward quali 
fications, a certain state of heart, a certain suscep- 
tivity, are required. Those who were shut out were 
rendered incapable by disqualifications. Absence of 
spiritual susceptibility in the case of those who 
" laughed Him to scorn," — unbelief in those who 
came with courteous scepticism, saying, " Trouble not 
the Master ; " in other Avords, He is not master of im- 
possibilities, — unreality in the professional mourners, 
the most hopeless of all disqualifications. Their whole 
life was acting: they had caught the tone of condo- 
lence and sympathy as a trick. Before minds such as 
these the wonders of creation may be spread in vain. 
Grief and joy alike are powerless to break through 
the crust of artificial semblance which envelops them. 
Such beings see no miracles. They gaze on all with 
dead, dim eyes, — wrapped in conventionalisms, their 
life a drama in which they are b\it actors, modulating 
their tones and simulating feelings according to a 
received standard. How can such be ever witnesses 
of the supernatural, or enter into the presence of the 
Wonderful? Two classes alone were admitted. They 
who, like Peter, James, and John, lived the life oi" 
courage, moral purity, and love ; and they who, like 
the parents, had had the film removed from their eyes 
by grief. For there is a way which God has of forcing 
the spiritual upon men's attention. When you shut 
down the lid upon the coffin of a child, or one as dearly 
loved, there is an awful want, a horrible sense of inse- 
curity, which sweeps away the glittering mist of time 
from the edge of the abyss, and you gaze on the phan- 



70 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER 

tom-wonders of the unseen. Yes, — real anguish qual- 
ifies for an entrance into the solemn chamber where 
all is miracle. 

In another way, and for another reason, the num- 
bers of those who witness a miracle must be limited, 
Jairus had his daughter restored to life : the woman 
was miraculously healed. But, if every anxious parent 
and every sick suiferer could have the wonder repeated 
in his or her case, the wonder itself would cease. 
This is the preposterou.-ness of the sceptic's demand. 
Let me see a miracle, on an appointed day and hour, 
and I will believe. Let us examine this. 

A miracle is commonly defined to be a contraven- 
tion of the laws of nature. More properly speaking, 
it is only a higher operation of those same laws, in a 
form hitherto unseen. A miracle is perhaps no more 
a suspension or contradiction of the laws of nature 
than a hurricane or a thunder-storm. They who first 
travelled to tropical latitudes came back with anec- 
dotes of supernatural convulsions of the elements. In 
truth, it was only that they had never personally wit- 
nessed such effects: but the hurricane which swept the 
waves flat, and the lightning which illuminated all the 
heaven or played upon the bayonets or masts in lam- 
bent flame, were but effects of the very same laws of 
electricity and meteorology which were in operation at 
home. A miracle is perhaps no more in contravention 
of the laws of the universe than the direct interposi- 
tion of a whole nation, in cases of emergency, to up- 
hold what is right in opposition to what is established, 
is an opposition to the laws of the realm. For in- 
stance, the whole people of Israel reversed the unjust 
decree of Saul which had sentenced Jonathan to death. 



THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 71 

But law is the expression only of a people's will. Or- 
dinarily we see that expression mediately made through 
judges, office-bearers, kings : and so long as we see it 
in this mediate form, we are, by habit, satisfied that all 
is legal. There are cases, however, in which not an 
indirect, but a direct expression of a nation's will, is 
demanded. Extraordinary cases ; and, because extraor- 
dinary, they who can only see what is legal in what is 
customary, conventional, and in the routine of written 
precedents, get bewildered, and reckon the anomalous 
act illegal or rebellious. In reality, it is only the 
source of earthly law, the nation, pronouncing the law 
without the intervention of the subordinate agents. 

This will help us to understand the nature of a mir- 
acle. What we call laws are simply the subordinate 
expression of a' Will. There must be a Will before 
there can be a law. Certain antecedents are followed 
by certain consequents. When we see this succession, 
we are satisfied, and call it natural. But there are 
emergencies in which it may be necessar}^ for the Will 
to assert itself, and become not the mediate, but the 
immediate antecedent to the consequent. No subor- 
dinate agent interposes, — simply the First cause comes 
in contact with a result. The audible expression of 
will is followed immediately by something which is 
generally preceded by some lower antecedent, which 
we call a cause. In this case, you will observe, there 
has been no contravention of the laws of Nature, — 
there has only been an immediate connection between 
the First cause and the last result. A miracle is the 
manifestation to man of the voluntariness of Power. 

Now, bearing this in mind, let it be supposed that 
every one had a right to demand a miracle ; that the 



72 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

occurrence of miracles was unlimited ; that as often 
as you had an ache, or trembled for the loss of a rela- 
tion, you had but to pray, and receive your wish. 

Clearly, in this case, first of all, the constitution of 
the universe would be reversed. The will of man 
would be substituted for the will of God. Caprice 
and chance would regulate all: — God would be de- 
throned : God would be degraded to the rank of one 
of those beings of supernatural power with whom 
Eastern romance abounds, who are subordinated by a 
spell to the will of a mortal, who is armed with their 
powers and uses them as vassals: God would be 
merely the genius who would be chained by the spell 
of prayer to obey the behests of man. Man would 
arm himself with the powers of Deity, and God would 
be liis slave. 

Further still: This unlimited extension of miracles 
would annihilate miracles themselves. For, suppose 
that miracles were universal ; that prayer was directly 
followed by a reply ; that we could all heal the sick 
and raise the dead : this, then, would become the com- 
mon order of things. It would be what we now call 
nature. It would cease to be extraordinary, and the 
infidel would be unsatisfied as ever. He would see 
only the antecedent, prayer, and the invariable conse- 
quent, a reply to prayer — exactly what he sees now 
in the process of causation. And then, just as now 
he would say. What more do we want? These are 
the laws of the universe : why interpose the complex 
and cumbrous machinery of a God, the awkward hy- 
pothesis of a will, to account for laws ? 

Miracles, then, are necessarily limited. The non- 
limitation of miracles would annihilate the miraculous. 



THE HEALING OF JATRUS' DAUGHTER. 73 

Lastly, It is the intention of a miracle to manifest 
the Divine in the common and ordinary. 

For instance, in a boat on the Sea of Tiberias, the 
Kedeemer rose and rebuked the storm. Was that 
miracle merely a proof of his Divine mission? Are 
we merely to gather from it that then and there, 
on a certain day, in a certain obscure corner of the 
world. Divine power was at work. It is conceiv- 
able that a man might credit that miracle ; that he 
might be exceedingly indignant with the rationalist 
who resolves it into a natural phenomenon, — and 
it is conceivable that that very man might trem- 
ble in a storm. To what purpose is that miracle 
announced to him ? He believes in God existing 
in the past, but not in the present ; he believes in 
a Divine presence in the supernatural, but discredits 
it in the natural. He recognizes God in the mar- 
vellous, but does not feel Him in the wonderful of 
everyday: unless it has taught him that the waves 
and winds now are in the hollow of the hand of God, 
the miracle has lost its meaning. 

Here again, as in many other cases, Christ healed 
sickness and raised the dead to life. Are we merely 
to insert this among the '^ Evidences of Christian- 
ity," and then, with lawyer-like sagacity, having laid 
down the rules of Evidence, say to the infidel, " Be- 
hold our credentials ; we call upon you to believe 
our Christianity " ? This w^ere a poor reason to 
acount for the putting forth of Almighty Power. 
More truly and more deeply, these miracles were vivid 
manifestations to the senses that Christ is the Sav- 
iour of the body ; that now, as then, the issues of 
life and death are in His hands ; that our daily exist- 
7 



74 THE HEALING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

ence is a perpetual miracle. The extraordinary was 
simply a manifestation of God's power in the ordi- 
nary. Nay, the ordinary marvels are greater than 
the extraordinary ; for these are subordinate to them 
— merely indications and handmaids, guiding us to per- 
ceive and recognize a constant Presence, and remind- 
ing us that in every-day existence the miraculous and 
the Grodlike rule us. 



IV. 

[Preached March 10, 1850.] 
BAPTISM. 

Gal. iii. 26-29. — " For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond 
nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ 
Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
according to the promise." 

Wherever opposite views are held with warmth 
by religious-minded men, we may take for granted that 
there is some higher truth which embraces both. All 
high truth is the union of two contradictories. Thus 
predestination and free will are opposites ; and the 
truth does not lie between these two, but in a higher 
reconciling truth, which leaves both true. So with the 
opposing views of baptism. Men of equal spirituality 
are ready to sacrifice all to assert, and to deny, the 
doctrine of baptismal regeneration. And the truth, I 
believe, will be found, not in some middle, moderate, 
timid doctrine, which skilfully avoids extremes ; but in 
a truth larger than either of these opposite views, 
which is the basis of both, and which really is that for 
which each party tenaciously clings to its own view 
as to a matter of life and death. 

(75) 



76 BAPTISM. 

The present occasion — the decision of the Privy 
Council — only requires us to examine three views. 

I. That of Rome. 

II. That of modern Calvinism. 

III. That of (as I believe) Scripture and the Church 
of England. 

I. The doctrine of Rome respecting baptism. We 
will take her own authorities. 

1 . " If any one say that the sin of Adam ..... 
is taken away, either by the powers of human nature, 
or by any other remedy than the merit of the One 
Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ .... or denies that 
the merit of Jesus Christ, duly conferred by the sacra- 
ment of baptism in the church form, is applied to 
adults as well as to children — let him be accursed." 
Sess. V. 4. 

^' If any one deny that the imputation of original sin 
is remitted by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which 
is conferred in baptism, or even asserts that the whole 
of that which has the true and proper character of sin 
is not taken away, but only not imputed — let him be 
accursed." 

" If any one says that grace is not given by sacra- 
ments of this kind always and to all, so far as God's 
part is concerned, but only at times, and to some, 
although they be duly received — let him be accursed." 

'' If any one say that by the sacraments of the New 
Covenant themselves grace is not conferred by the 
efficacy of the rite (opus operatum), but that faith 
alone is sufficient for obtaining grace — let him be 
accursed." 

" If any one say that in three sacraments — that 



BAPTISM. 77 

is, baptism, confirmation, and orders — a character is 
not impressed upon the soul — that is, a certain spirit- 
ual and indelible mark (for which reason they can- 
not be repeated) — let him be accursed.'' Sess. vii., 
cap. 7-9. 

" By baptism, putting on Christ, we are made a new 
creation in Him, obtaining plenary and entire remis- 
sion of all sins." 

It is scarcely possible to misrepresent the doctrine 
so plainly propounded. Christ's merits are instru- 
mentally applied by baptism ; original sin is removed 
b}^ a change of nature ; a new character is imparted 
to the soul ; a germinal principle or seed of life is 
miraculously given ; and all this, in virtue not of any 
condition in the recipient, nor of any condition except 
that of the due performance of the rite. 

This view is held with varieties, and modifications 
of many kinds, by an increasingly large number of 
the members of the Church of England ; but we do 
not concern ourselves with these timid modifications, 
which painfully attempt to draw some subtle hair- 
breadth distinction between themselves and the above 
doctrine. The true, honest, and only honest represent- 
ation of this view is that put forward undisguisedly by 
Rome. 

When it is objected to the Eomanist that there is 
no evidence in the life of the baptized child different 
from that given by the unbaptized, sufficient to make 
credible a change so enormous, he replies, as in the 
case of the other sacrament, — The miracle is invisi- 
ble. You cannot see the bread and wine become flesh 
and blood ; but the flesh and blood are there, whether 
you see them or not. You cannot see the eff'ects of 



78 BAPTISM. 

regeneration ; but they are there, hidden, whether visi- 
ble to you or not. In other words, Christ has declared 
that it is with every one born of the Spirit as with the 
wind — " Thou hear est the sound thereof. ^^ But the Ro- 
manist distinctly holds that you cannot hear the sound ; 
that the wind hath blown, but there is no sound ; that 
the Spirit hath descended, and there are no fruits where- 
by the tree is known. 

In examining this view, at the outset, we deprecate 
those vituperative and ferocious expressions which 
are used so commonly against the church of Rome ; — 
unbecoming in private conversation, disgraceful on 
the platform, they are still more unpardonable in the 
pulpit. I am not advocating that feeble softness of 
mind which cannot speak strongly because it cannot 
feel strongly. I know the value, and, in their place, 
the need of strong words. I know that the Redeemer 
used them: stronger and keener never fell from the 
lips of man. I am aware that our Reformers used 
coarse and vehement language ; but we do not im- 
bibe the Reformers' spirit by the mere adoption of the 
Reformers' language, — nay, paradoxical as it may seem, 
the use of their language even proves a degeneracy 
from their spirit. You will find harsh and gross ex- 
pressions enough in the Homilies ; but remember that 
when they spoke thus Rome was in the ascendency 
She had the power of fire and sword ; and the men 
who spoke so were candidates for martyrdom, by the 
expressions that they used. Every one might be called 
upon by fire and steel to prove the quality of what was 
in him, and account for the high pretensions of his 
words. I grant the grossness. But when they spoke 
of the harlotries of Rome, and spoke of her adulteries, 



BAPTISM. 79 

and fornications, and lies, which she had put in full 
cup to the lips of nations, it was the sublime defi- 
ance of free-hearted men against oppression in high 
places, and falsehood dominant. But now, when Rome 
is no longer dominant, and the only persecutions that 
we hear of are the petty persecutions of Protestants 
among themselves, to use language such as this is not 
the spirit of a daring Reformer, but only the pusillan- 
imous shriek of cruel cowardice, which keeps down the 
enemy whose rising it is afraid of. 

We will do justice to this doctrine of Rome. It 
has this merit, at least, that it recognizes the character 
of a church ; it admits it to be a society, and not an 
association. An association is an arbitrary union. 
Men form associations for temporary reasons ; and, 
arbitrarily made, they can be arbitrarily dissolved. 
Society, on the contrary, is made not by will, but facts. 
Brotherhood, sonship, families, nations, are nature's 
work — real facts. Rome acknowledges this. It per- 
mits no arbitrary drawing of the lines of that Avhich 
calls itself the church. A large, broad, mighty field , 
the Christian world ; all baptized ; nay, expressly, even 
those who are baptized by heretics. It shares the spirit, 
instead of monopolizing it. 

Practically, therefore,* in the matter of education, we 
should teach children on the basis on which Rome 
works. We say as Rome says, You are the child of 
"God; baptism declares you such. Rome says as Paul 
says, " As many of you as are baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ." 

Consequently, we distinguish between this doctrine 
as held by spiritual and as held by unspiritual men. 
Spirituality often neutralizes error in views. Men are 



80 BAPTISM. 

better often than their creeds. The Calvinist ought 
to be an Antinomian, — he is not. So, in holy-minded 
men, this doctrine of baptismal regeneration loses its 
perniciousness, — nay, even becomes, in erroneous 
form, a precious, blessed truth. 

It is quite another thing, however, held by unspirit 
ual men. Our objections to this doctrine are : 

1. Because it assumes baptism to be not the testi- 
mony to a fact, but the fact itself. Baptism proclaims 
the child of God. The Romanist says it creates him. 
Then and there a mysterious change takes place, inward, 
spiritual, effected by an external rite. This makes bap- 
tism not a sacrament, but an event. 

2. Because it is materialism of the grossest kind. 
The order of Christian life is from within to that 
which is without, — from the spiritual truth to the 
material expression of it. The Roman order is from 
the outward to the creation of the inward. This is 
magic. The Jewish Cabalists believed that the pro- 
nunciation of certain magical words, engraved on the 
seal of Solomon, would perform marvels. The whole 
Eastern world fancied that such spells could transform 
one being into another, — a brute into a man, or a man 
into a brute. Books containing such trash were burnt 
at Ephesus, in the dawn of Christianity. But here, in 
the mid-day of Christianity, we have belief in such 
spells, — given, it is true that it is said, by God, — 
whereby the demoniacal nature can be exorcised, the 
Divine implanted in its stead, and the evil heart trans- 
formed unconsciously into a pure spirit. 

Now, this is degrading God. Observe the results : 
A child is to be baptized on a given day ; but when 
that day arrives, the child is unwell, and the cere 



BAPTISM. 81 

mony must be postponed another week or month. 
Agam a delay takes place, — the day is damp or cold. 
At last the time arrives ; the service is read. It may 
require, if read slowly, five minutes more than ordi- 
narily. Then and there, when that reading is slowly 
accomplished, the mystery is achieved. And all this 
time, while the child is ill, while the weather is bad, 
while the reader procrastinates, — I say it solemnly, — 
the Eternal Spirit who rules this universe must wait 
patiently, and come down, obedient to a mortal's spell, 
at the very second that it suits his convenience. God 
must wait attendance on the caprice of a careless 
parent, ten thousand accidents, — nay, the leisure of an 
indolent or an immoral priest. Will you dare insult 
the Majesty on High by such a mockery as this 
result ? 

3. We object, because this view makes Christian life 
a struggle for something that is lost, instead of a prog- 
ress to something that Hes before. Let no one fancy 
that Rome's doctrine on this matter makes salvation 
an easy thing. The spirit of God is given, — the germ 
is implanted ; but it may be crushed, injured, des- 
troyed. And her doctrine is, that venial sins after 
baptism are removed by absolutions and attendance on 
the ordinances ; whereas for mortal sins there is — not 
no hope — but no certainty ever after until the judg- 
ment-day. Vicious men may make light of such teach- 
ing, and get periodic peace from absolution, to go and 
sin again ; but to a spiritual Eomanist this doctrine is 
no encouragement for laxity. Now, observe, after sin, 
life becomes the effort to get back to where you were 
years ago. It is the sad, longing glance at the Eden 
from which you have been expelled, which is guarded 



82 BAPTISM. 

now by a fiery sword in this world forever. And, 
therefore, whoever is familiar with the writings of 
some of the earliest leaders of the present movement 
Rome-wards, — writings that rank among the mosttouch- 
ing and beautiful of English composition, — will remem- 
ber the marked tone of sadness which pervades them ; 
their high, sad longings after the baptismal purity that 
is gone ; their mournful contemplations of a soul that 
once glistened with baptismal dew, now " seamed and 
scarred " with the indelible marks of sin. The true 
Christian life is ever onwards, full of trust and hope : 
a life wherein even past sin is no bar to saintliness, 
but the step by which you ascend to higher vantage- 
ground of holiness. The "indelible grace of baptism," 
— how can it teach that ? 

II. The second view is that held by what we, for the 
sake of avoiding personalities, call modern Calvinism. 
It draws a distinction between the visible and the 
invisible church. It holds that baptism admits all 
into the former, but into the latter only a special few. 
Baptismal regeneration, as applied to the first, is 
merely a change of state, — though what is meant by 
a change of state it were hard to say, or to determine 
wherein an unbaptized person admitted to all the 
ordinances would differ in state from a person baptized. 
The real benefit of baptism, however, only belongs to 
the elect. With respect to others, to predicate of 
them regeneration in the highest sense, is at best an 
ecclesiastical fiction, said " in the judgment of charity." 

This view maintains that you are not God's child 
until you become such consciously. Not until evi- 
dence of a regenerate life is given, not until signs 



BAPTISM. 83 

of a converted soul are shown, is it right to speak of 
being God's child, except in this judgment of charity. 
Now we remark, 

1. This judgment of charity ends at the baptismal 
font. It is never heard of in after-life. It is like the 
charitable judgment of the English law, which pre- 
sumes, or is said to presume, a man innocent till proved 
guilty : valuable enough as a legal fiction ; neverthe- 
less, it does not prevent a man barring his windows, 
guarding his purse, keenly watching against the deal- 
ings of those around him who are presumed innocent. 
Similarly, the so-called judgment of charity terminates 
with infancy. They who speak of the church's lan- 
guage, in which children are called children of God, as 
being quite right, but only in the judgment of charity, 
are exactly the persons who do not in after-life chari- 
tably presume that aU their neighbors are Christians. 
" He is not a Christian." — " She is one of the world : " 
or, " one of the unregenerate." Such is the language 
applied to those who are in baptism reckoned children 
of God. They could not consistently apply to all 
adults the language applied in this text: " As many of 
you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
Christ. Ye are all the children of God by faith in 
Christ Jesus." 

2. Next, I observe that this view is identical with 
the Roman one in this respect, that it creates the fact 
instead of testifying to it. Only, instead of baptism, it 
substitutes certain views, feelings, and impressions; 
and asserts that these make the man into a child of 
God. The Romanist says Baptism, the Calvinist says 
Faith, makes that true which was not true before. It 
is not a fact that God is that person's Father, till in 



84 BAPTISM. 

the one case baptism, in the other faith, have made 
Him such. 

3. Observe the pernicious results of this teaching in 
the matter of Education. Here again I draw the 
distinction between the practical consequences which 
legitimately ought to be and those which actually are 
deduced from it. Happily, men are better than their 
views. Hear the man speaking out of his theological 
system, and then hear him speaking out of the abun- 
dance of his heart. Hear the religious mother when 
the system is in view, and all are indiscriminately, 
except a certain few, corrupt, vile, with nothing good 
in them, heirs of ruin. But hear her talking unguard- 
edly of her own children. They have thtf frailties, 
weaknesses, common faults, of childhood ; but they 
have no vice in them ; there is nothing base or de- 
graded in her children ! When the embraces of her 
child are round her neck, it will require more elo- 
quence than you possess to convince her that she is 
nursing a little demon in her lap. The heart of the 
mother is more than a match for the creed of the Cal- 
vinist. 

There are some, however, who do not shrink from 
consistency, and develop their doctrine in all its con- 
sequences. The children follow out their instructions 
with fearful fidelity. Taught that they are not the 
children of God till certain feelings have been devel- 
oped in them, they become by degrees bewildered, or 
else lose their footing on reality. They hear of certain 
mystic joys and sorrows ; and unless they fictitious!}' 
adopt the language they hear, they are painfully con- 
scious that they know nothing of them as yet. They 
hear of a depression for sin which they certainly have 



BAPTISM. 85 

never experienced, — a joy in God, making his service 
and his house the gate of heaven ; and they know that 
it is excessively irksome to them, — a confidence, trust, 
and assurance, of which they knoAV nothing, — till they 
take for granted what has been told them, that they 
are not God's children. Taught that they are as yet 
of the world, they live as the world, — they carry out 
their education, which has dealt with them as children 
of the devil, to be converted ; and children of the devil 
they become. 

Of these two views, the last is by far the most cer- 
tain to undermine Christianity in every Protestant 
country. The fi:rst, at least, assumes God's badge an 
universal one ; and in education is so far right, prac- 
tically ; only wrong in the decision of the question 
how the child was created a child of God. But the 
second assumes a false, partial, party badge, — election, 
views, feelings. No wonder that the children of such 
religionists proverbially turn out ill. 

III. We pass to the doctrine of the Bible, and (I 
believe) of the Church. 

Christ came to reveal a name — the Father. He 
abolished the exclusive " my," and he taught to pray 
" our Father." He proclaimed God the Father, — 
man the Son : revealed that the Son of Man is also 
the Son of God. Man — as man, God's child. He 
came to redeem the world from that ignorance of 
the relationship which had left them in heart aliens 
and unregenerate. Human nature, therefore, became, 
viewed in Christ, a holy thing and divine. The Rev- 
elation is a common humanity, sanctified in God. The 
8 



86 BAPTISM. 

appearance of the Son of Grod is the sanctification of 
the human race. 

The development of this startled men. Sons of 
God ! Yes ; ye Jews have monopolized it too long. 
Is that Samaritan, heretic and alien, a child of God? 
Yes, the Samaritan : but not these outcasts of soci- 
ety? Yes; these outcasts of society. He went into 
the publican's house, and proclaimed that " he, too, 
was a son of Abraham." He suffered the sinful pen- 
itent to flood his feet with tears. He saw there the 
Eternal Light unquenched, — the eye, long dimmed 
and darkened, which yet still could read the Eternal 
Mind. She, too, is God's erring, but forgiven, be- 
loved, and " much-loving " child. One step further. 
He will not dare to say, — the Gentiles? — the Gen- 
tiles who bow down to stocks and stones ? Yes, the 
Gentiles too. He spake to them a parable. He told 
of a younger son who had lived long away from his 
father's home. But his forgetfulness of his father 
could not abrogate the fact of his being his son, and, 
as soon as he recognized the relationship, all the bless- 
ings of it were his own. 

Now, this is the Revelation. Man is God's child, 
and the sm of the man consists in perpetuall}^ living 
as if it were false. It is the sin of the heathen, — and 
what is your mission to him but to tell him that he is 
God's child, and not living up to his privilege ? It is 
the sin of the baptized Christian, — waiting for feel- 
ings for a claim on God. It was the false life which 
the Jews had led : precisely this, that they were living 
coerced by law. Christ had come to redeem them 
from the law, that they might receive the adoption of 
sons. But they were sons already, if they only knew 



BAPTISM. 87 

it. ^'Because ye are sons, God bath sent forth the 
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, whereby ye cry 
Abba, Father." To be a son of God is one thing ; to 
know that you are, and call him Father, is another, — 
and that is regeneration. 

Now, there was wanted a permanent and authorita- 
tive pledge, revealing and confirming this ; for, to 
mankind in the mass, invisible truths become real 
only when they have been made visible. All spiritual 
facts must have an existence in form for the human 
mind to rest on. This pledge is baptism. Baptism 
is a visible witness to the world of that which the 
world is forever forgetting, a common humanity 
united in God. Baptism authoritatively reveals and 
pledges to the individual that which is true of the 
race. Baptism takes the child and addresses it by 
name. Paul — no longer Saul — you are a child of 
God. Remember it henceforth. It is now revealed 
to you, and recognized by you, and to recognize God 
as the Father is to be regenerate (John i. 12). You, 
Paul, are now regenerate: you w^ill have foes to fight, 
— the world, the flesh, and the devil, — but remember, 
they only keep you out of an inheritance which is 
your own ; not an inheritance which you have to win 
by some new feeling or merit in yourself. It iS yours: 
you are the child of God ; you are a member of 
Christ; you are an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven. 

Observe, then, baptism does not create a child of 
God. It authoritatively declares him. It does not 
make the fact ,* it only reveals it. If baptism made 
it a fact, then and there for the first time, baptism 
would be magic. Nay, faith does not create a child 



88 BAPTISM. 

of God any more than baptism, nor does it make a 
fact. It only appropriates that which is a fact already. 
For otherwise see what inextricable confusion you fall 
into. You ask a man to believe, and thereby be created 
a child of Grod. Believe what ? That God is his 
Father. But God is not his Father. He is not a child 
of God, you say, till he believes. Then you ask him 
to believe a lie. 

Herein lies the error, in basis identical, of the 
Romanist and the Calvinist. Faith is to one what 
baptism is to the other, the creator of a fact ; whereas 
they both rest upon a fact, which is a fact whether 
they exist or not, — before they exist ; nay, without 
whose previous existence both of them are unmeaning 
and false. 

The Catechism, however, says : In baptism ... 1 
was made a child of God. Yes ; coronation makes a 
sovereign; but, paradoxical as it may seem, it can 
only make a sovereign one who is sovereign already. 
Crown a pretender, that coronation will not create the 
king. Coronation is the authoritative act of the 
nation declaring a fact which was fact before. And 
ever after, coronation is the event to which all dates 
back ; and the crown is the expression used for all 
royal acts: the crown pardons, the prerogatives of the 
crown, &c. 

Similarly with baptism. Baptism makes a child of 
God in the sense in which coronation makes a king. 
And baptism naturally stands in Scripture for the 
title of regeneration and the moment of it. Only 
what coronation is in an earthly way, an authorita- 
tive manifestation of an invisible earthly truth, baptism 
is in a heavenly way — God's authoritative declaration 



BAPTISM. 89 

in material form of spiritual reality. In other words, 
no bare sign, but a Divine Sacrament. 

Now for the blessings of this view. 

1. It prevents exclusiveness and spiritual pride, and 
all condemnation and contempt of others; for it 
admits those who have no spiritual capacity or con- 
sciousness to be God's children. It proclaims a king- 
dom, not for a few favorites, but for mankind. It pro- 
tests against the idea that sonship depends on feelings. 
It asserts it as a broad, grand, universal, blessed fact. 
It bids you pray with a meaning of added majesty in 
the words, Qur Father. Take care. Do not say of 
others that they are unregenerate — of the world. Do 
not make a distinction within the church of Christians 
and not-Christians. If you do, what do you more than 
the Pharisees of old? That wretched beggar that 
holds his hat at the crossing of the street is God's 
child as well as you, if he only knew it. You know 
it, — he does not ; that is the difference ; but the im- 
mortal is in him too, and the Eternal Word speaks in 
him. That daughter of dissipation whom you despise, 
spending night after night in frivolity, she, too, has a 
Father in Heaven. " My Father and your Father, my 
God and your God.'' She has forgotten Him, and, like 
the prodigal, is trying to live on the husks of the 
world, — the empty husks which will not satisfy, — 
the degrading husks which the swine did eat. But, 
whether she will or not, her baptism is valid, and pro- 
claims a fact, — which may be, alas ! the worse for her, 
if she will not have it the better. 

3. This doctrine protests against the notion of our 
being separate units in the Divine life. The church 
of Calvinism is merely a collection of atoms, — a sand- 



90 BAPTISM. 

heap piled together, with no cohesion among them- 
selves ; or, a mass of steel-filings cleaving separately 
to a magnet, but not to each other. Baptism pro- 
claims a church — humanity joined in Christ to God. 
Do not say that the separating work of baptism, draw- 
ing a distinction between the church and the world, 
negatives this. Do not say that, because the church 
is separated from the world, therefore the world are 
not God's children. Rather that very separation 
proves it. You baptize a separate body in order to 
realize that which is true of the collective race, as in 
this text — "There is neither Jew nor Greek." In all 
things it is the same. If you would sanctify all time, 
you set apart a sabbath, — not to show that other days 
are not intended to be sacred, but for the very pur- 
pose of making them sacred. If you would have a 
" nation of priests," you set apart a priesthood ; not 
as if the priestly functions of instruction and assisting 
to approach God were exclusively in that body, but in 
order, by concentration, to bring out to greater per- 
fection the priestly character which is shared by the 
whole, and then thereby make the whole more truly 
"■ priests to God to offer spiritual sacrifices." In the 
same way, if God would baptize humanity. He baptizes 
a separate church, in order that that church may bap- 
tize the race. The church is God's ideal of humanity 
realized. 

Lastly, this doctrine of baptism sanctifies material- 
ism. The Romanist was feeling his way to a great 
fact, when he said that there are other things of sacrar 
mental efficacy besides these two — baptism and the 
supper. The things of earth are pledges and sacra- 
ments of things in heaven. It is not for nothing that 



BAPTISM. 91 

God has selected for His sacrament the commonest of 
all acts, — a meal, — and the most abundant of all ma- 
terials, — water. Think you that He means to say that 
only through two channels His spirit streams into the 
soul? Or is it not much more in unison with his deal- 
ings to say, that these two are set apart to signify to 
us the sacramental character of all nature ? — just as a 
miracle was intended not to reveal G-od working there, 
at that death-bed and in that storm, but to call atten- 
tion to His presence in every death and every storm. 
Go out at this spring season of the year, see the 
mighty preparations for life that Nature is making, 
feel the swelling sense of gratefulness, and the perva- 
sive expanding consciousness of love for all Being, 
arid then say whether this whole Form, which we call 
Nature, is not the great Sacrament of God, the revela- 
tion of His existence, and the channel of His commu- 
nications to the spirit ! 



V. 

[Preached March 17, 1850.] 
BAPTISM. ' 

I Peter iii. 21. — "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also 

now save us." 

Last Sunday we considered the subject of baptism 
in reference to the Romish and modern Calvinistic 
views. The truth seemed to He not in a middle course 
between the two extremes, but in a truth deeper than 
either of them. For there are various modifications 
of the Romish view which soften down its repulsive 
features. There are some who hold that the guilt of 
original sin is pardoned, but the tendencies of an evil 
nature remain. Others, who attribute a milder mean- 
ing to " Regeneration," understanding by it a change 
of state instead of a change of nature. Others, who 
acknowledge a certain mysterious benefit imparted by 
baptism, but decline determining how much grace is 
given, or Tvhat the exact nature of the blessing is. 
Others, who acknowledge that it is, in certain cases, 
the moment when regeneration takes place, but hold 
that it is conditional, occurring sometimes, not always, 
and following upon the condition of what they call 
"prevenient grace." We do not touch upon these 
views. They are simply modifications of the Romish 

(92) 



BAPTISM. 93 

view, and, as such, more offensive than the view itself; 
for they contain that which is in it most objectionable, 
and special evils of their OAvn besides. 

We admitted the merits of the two views. We are 
grateful to the Romanist for the testimony which he 
bears to the truth of the extent of Christ's salvation ; 
for the privilege which he gives of calling all the bap- 
tized children of God ; for the protest which his doc- 
trine makes against all party monopoly of God ; for 
the protest against ultra-spiritualism, in acknowledging 
that material things are the types and channels of the 
Almighty Presence. 

We are grateful to the Calvinist for his strong pro- 
test against formalism ; for his assertion of the neces- 
sity of an inward change ; for the distinction which he 
has drawn between being in the state of sons and hav- 
ing the nature of sons of God. 

The error in these two systems, contrary as they 
are, appeared to us to be identically one and the same, 
— that of pretending to create a fact instead of wit- 
nessing to it. The Calvinist maintains, that on a cer- 
tain day and hour, under the ministry of the Word, 
under preaching of some one who " proclaims the 
Gospel," he was born again, and God became his 
Father ; and the Romanist declares, that on a certain 
day, at a certain moment by an earthly clock, by the 
hands of a priest apostolically ordained, the evil nature 
was expelled from him, and a new fact in the world 
was created : he attained the right of calling God his 
Father. 

Now, if baptism makes God our Father, baptism is 
incantation ; if faith makes him so, faith rests upon a 
falsehood. 



94 BAPTISM. 

For the Romanist does no more than the red Indian 
and the black negro pretend to do — exorcise the devil, 
and infuse God. The only question then becomes, 
Which is the true enchanter, and which is the impostor? 
for the juggler does, by the power of imagination, 
often cure the sick man; but the mysterious effects of 
baptism never are visible, and never can be tested in 
this world. 

On the other hand, faith would rest upon a false- 
hood ; for, if faith is to give the right of calling God a 
Father, how can you believe that which is not true the 
very moment before belief? God is not your Father. 
If you believe He is, your belief is false. 

The truth which underlies these two views, on which 
all that is true in them rests, and in which all that is 
false is absorbed, is the Paternity of God. This is the 
Revelation of the Redeemer. This is authoritativel}'- 
declared by baptism, appropriated personally by faith ; 
but a truth independent both of baptism and faith, 
which would still be true if there were neither a bap- 
tism nor a faith in the world. They are the witnesses 
of the fact, not the creators of it. 

Here, however, two difficulties arise. If this be so, 
do we not make light of original sin? And do we not 
reduce baptism into a superfluous ceremony ? 

Before we enter upon these questions, I must vindi- 
cate myself from the appearance of presumption. 
Where the wisest and holiest have held opposite 
views, it seems immodest to speak with unfaltering 
certainty and decisive tone. Hesitation, guarded 
statements, caution, it would seem, would be far more 
in place. Now, to speak decidedly is not necessarily 
to speak presumptuously. There are questions involv- 



BAPTISM. 95 

lug great research, and questions relating to truths 
beyond our ken, where guarded and uncertain tones 
are only a duty. There are others, where the decision 
has become conviction, a kind of intuition, the result 
of years of thought ; which has been the day to a 
man's darkness, " the fountain-light of all his seeing ; " 
which has interpreted him to himself, made all clear 
where all was perplexed before, been the key to the 
riddle of truths that seemed contradictory, become 
part of his very being, and for which, more than once, 
he has held himself cheerfully prepared to sacrifice all 
that is commonly held dear. With respect to convic- 
tions such as these, of course, the arguments by which 
they are enforced may be faulty, the illustrations inade- 
quate, the power of making them intelligible very 
feeble, — nay, the views themselves may be wrong; 
but, to pretend to speak with hesitation or uncertainty 
respecting such convictions, would be not modesty, 
but affectation. 

For let us remember in what spirit we are to enter 
on this inquiry. Not in the spirit of mere cautious 
orthodoxy, endeavoring to find a safe mean between 
two extremes, — inquiring what is the view held by 
the sound and judicious and respectable men, who 
were never found guilty of any enthusiasm, and under 
the shelter of whose opinion we may be secure from 
the charge of anything unsound. Nor in the spirit of 
the lawyer, patiently examining documents, weighing 
evidence, and deciding whether upon sufficient testi 
mony there is such a thing as " prevenient grace " or 
not. Nor, once more, in the spirit of superstition. 
The superstitious mother of the lower classes baptizes 
her child in all haste, because she believes it has a 



96 BAPTISM. 

mystic influence on its health, or because she fancies 
that it confers the name without which it would not be 
summoned at the day of judgment. And the supersti- 
tious mother of the upper classes baptizes her child, too, 
in all haste, because, though she does not precisely 
know what the mystic effect of baptism is, she thinks it 
best to be on the safer side, lest her child should die, 
and its eternity should be decided by the omission. 
And Ave go to preach to the heathen, while there are 
men and women in our Christian England so bewil- 
dered with systems and sermons, so pt^ofoundly in the 
dark respecting the Father of our Lord Jesus Christy 
so utterly unable to repose in Eternal Love and 
Justice, that they must guard their chWdi from Him by 
a ceremony, and have the shadow of a shade of doubt 
whether or not, for omission of theirs, that child's Cre- 
ator and Fatjjer may curse its soul for all eternity ! 

We are to enter upon this question as a real one of 
life and death ; as men who feel in their bosoms sin 
and death, and who want to determine no theologi- 
cal nicety, but this : Whether we have a right to claim 
to be the sons of God or not ? And if so, on what 
grounds ? In virtue of a ceremony ? or in virtue of 
a certain set of feelings ? or in virtue of an Eternal 
Fact, — the fact of God's Paternity ? 

I reply to two objections. 

I. The apparent denial of original sin. 

II. The apparent result that baptism is nothing. 

I. The text selected is a strong and distinct one. 
It proclaims the value of baptism. '^ Baptism saves 
»is." But it declares that it can only be said figura- 



BAPTISM. 97 

tively. " The like figure wheremito even baptism doth 
also now save us." 

Now, the first reply I make is, that in truth the 
Romish view seems to make lighter of original sin 
than this. Methinks original sin must be a trifling 
thinjr if a little water and a few human words can do 
away with it :" a trifling thing, if, after it is done 
away, there is no distinguishable difierence between 
the baptized and unbaptized ; if the unbaptized Quaker 
is just as likely to exhibit the fruits of goodness as the 
baptized son of the Church of England. We have got 
out of the land of reality, into the domain of figments 
and speculations. A fictitious guilt is done away with 
by a fictitious pardon ; neither the appearance nor the 
disappearance being visible. 

Original sin is an awful fact. It is not the guilt of 
an ancestor imputed to an innocent descendant, but it 
is the tendencies of that ancestor living in his ofi- 
spring and incurring guilt. Original sin can be for- 
given only so far as original sin is removed. It is not 
Adam's — it is yours ; and it must cease to be yours, or 
else what is " taking away original sin " ? 

Now, he who would deny original sin must contra- 
dict all experience in the transmission of qualities. 
The very hound transmits his peculiarities learnt by 
education, and the horse of Spain his paces taught by 
art to his ofi'spring, as a part of their nature. If it 
were not so in man, there could be no history of 
man as a species ; no tracing out the tendencies of 
a race or nation ; nothing but the unconnected repeti- 
tions of isolated individuals, and their lives. It is 
plain that the first man must have exerted on his race 
an influence quite peculiar; that his acts must have 
9 



98 BAPTISM. 

biased their acts. And this bias or tendency is what 
we call original sin. 

Now, original sin is just this denial of God^s Pater- 
nity, — refusing to live as His children, and saying we 
are not His children. To live as His child is the true 
life ; to live as not His child is the false life. What 
was the Jews' crime ? Was it not this : " He came 
unto His own, and His own received Him not ; " that 
they were His own, and in act denied it, preferring to 
the claim of spiritual relationship the claim of union 
by circumcision or hereditary descent? What was 
the crime of the Gentiles ? Was it not this : that 
' when they knew God, they glorified Him not as 
God, neither were thankful"? For what were they 
to be thankful? For being His enemies? Were they 
not His children. His sheep of another fold? Was 
not the whole falsehood of their life the worship of 
demons and nothings, instead of Him ? Did not the 
parable represent them as the younger son, a wanderer 
from home, but still a son ? 

From this state Christ redeemed. He revealed God 
Qot as the Mechanic of the universe ; not the Judge ; 
but as the Father, and as the Spirit who is in man, 
^lighting every man," moving in man his infinite 
desires and infinite affections. This was the Revela- 
tion. The reception of that revelation is Regenera- 
tion. " He came unto His own, and His own received 
Him not; but to as many as received Him, to them gave 
He power to become the sons of God, even to as 
many as believed on His Name." They were His own, 
— yet they wanted power to become His own. 

Draw a distinction, therefore, between being the 
child of God and realizing it. The fact is one thing • 



BAPTISM. 99 

the feeling of the fact, and the life which results from 
that feeling, is another. Kedemption is the taking of 
us out of the life of falsehood into the life of truth 
and fact. " Of His own will begat He us by the 
word of Truth." But, remember, it is a truth : true, 
whether you believe it or not ; true, whether you are 
baptized or not. 

There are two ways in which that Revelation may 
be accepted. 1. By a public recognition called bap- 
tism. 2. By faith. In two ways, therefore, may it be 
said that man is saved. " We are saved by faith." 
But it is also true, figuratively, " Baptism saves us." 

n. If baptism is only the public recognition and 
symbol of a fact, is not baptism degraded and made 
superfluous ? 

2. Baptism is given as a something to rest upon ; 
nay, as a something without which redemption would 
soon become unreal ; which converts a doctrine into a 
reality ; which realizes visibly what is invisible. 

For our nature is such, that immaterial truths are 
unreal to us until they are embodied in material form. 
Form almost gives them reality and being. For 
instance, time is an eternal fact. But time only exists 
to our conceptions as an actuality by measurements 
of materialism. When God created the sun, and 
moon, and stars, to serve for " signs, and for seasons, 
and for days and years," He was actually, so far as 
man was concerned, creating time. Our minds would 
be only floating in an eternal Now, if it were not for 
symbolical successions which represent the processes 
of thought. The clock in the house is almost a fresh 
creation. It realizes. The gliding heavens, and the 



100 BAPTISM. 

seasons, and the ticking clock, — what is tim'? ic ,.,' 
without them? Nothing. 

God's character, again, nay, God Himself, to us would 
be nothing, if it were not for the creation, which is the 
great symbol and sacrament of His presence. If 
there were no light, no sunshine, no sea, no national 
and domestic life, — no material witness of His Being, 
— God would be to us as good as lost. The Creation 
gives us God; for, ever real in Himself, by Creation 
He becomes a fact to us. 

It is in virtue, again, of this necessity in man for an 
outward symbol to realize an invisible Idea, that a bit 
of torn and blackened rag hanging from a fortress or 
the taffrail of a ship is a kind of life to iron-hearted 
men. Why is it that in the heat of battle there is one 
spot where the sabres flash most rapidly, and the pis- 
tol's ring is quicker, and men and officers close in 
most densely, and all are gathered round one man, 
round whose body that tattered silk is wound, and 
held with the tenacity of a death-struggle ? Are they 
only children fighting for a bit of rag? That flag is 
everything to them : their regiment — their country — 
their honor — their life. Yet it is only a symbol ! 
Are symbols nothing? 

In the same way, baptism is a fact for man to rest 
upon ; a doctrine realized to flesh and blood ; a 
something in eternity which has no place in time, 
brought down to such time expressions as '' then and 
there." 

2. Again, baptism is the token of a church ; the token 
of an universal church. Observe the importance of 
its being the sacrament of an universal church instead 
of the symbol of a sect. Not episcopacy, not justifi.- 



BAPTISM. 101 

cation by faith, nor any party badge, but " one bap- 
tism." How blessed, on the strength of this, to be 
able to say to the baptized dissenter. You are my 
brother; you anathematize my church, link popery 
and prelacy together, malign me, — but the same sign 
is on our brow, and the same Father was named 
over our baptism. Or, to say to a baptized Romanist, 
You are my brother, too, — in doctrinal error, perhapc;, 
— in error of life, it may be, too, — but my brother, — 
our enemies the same, our struggle the same, our 
hopes and warfare the very same. Or, to the very out- 
cast. And you, my poor, degraded friend, are my 
brother still, — sunk, oblivious of your high calling, — 
but still, whatever keeps you away from heaven keeps 
you from your own. You may live the false life till it 
is too late ; but still, you only exclude yourself from 
your home. Of course this is very offensive. What ! 
the Romanist my brother ! the synagogue of Satan the 
house of God ! the Spirit of God dwelling with the 
church of Rome ! the believer in transubstantiation 
my brother and God's child ! Yes, even so ; and it is 
just your forgetfulness of what baptism is and means 
that accounts for that indignation of yours. Do you 
remember what the elder brother in the parable was 
doing? He went away sulky and gloomy, because one 
not half so good as himself was recognized as his 
father's child. 

3. Baptism is seen to be no mere superfluity, when 
you remember that it is an authoritative symbol. 
Draw the distinction between an arbitrary symbol 
and an authoritative one — for this difference is every- 
thing. 

I take once again the illustration of the coronation 
9* 



102 BAPTISM. 

act. Coronation places the crown on the brow of one 
who is sovereign. It does not make the fact ; it wit 
nesses it. Is coronation, therefore, nothing? An 
arbitrary symboHcal act, agreed on by a few friends 
of the sovereign, would be nothing ; but an act which 
is the solemn ratification of a country is everything. 
It realizes a fact scarcely till then felt to be real. Yet 
the fact was fact before, — otherwise the coronation 
would be invalid. Even when the third WiUiam was 
crowned, there was the symbol of a previous fact, — 
the nation's decree that he should be king; and ac- 
cordingly, ever after, all is dated back to that. You 
talk of crown-prerogatives. You say, in your loyalty, 
you would bow to the crown though it hung upon a 
bush. Yet it is only a symbol ! You only say it " in 
a figure." But that figure contains witliin it the roy- 
alty of England. 

In a figure, the Bible speaks of baptism as you 
speak of coronation, as identical with that which it 
proclaims. It calls it regeneration. It says baptism 
saves. A grand figure, because it rests upon eternal 
fact. Call you that nothing? 

We look to the Bible to corroborate this. In the 
Acts of the Apostles, Cornelius is baptized. On what 
grounds? To manufacture him into a child of God? 
or J)ecause he was the child of God ? Did his baptism 
create the fact? or was the fact prior to his baptism, 
and the ground on which his baptism was valid ? The 
history is this : St. Peter could not believe that a Gen- 
tile could be a child of God. But the miraculous 
phenomena manifested, to his astonishment, that this 
Gentile actually was God's child, — whereupon the 
argument of Peter was very natural : He has the 



BAPTISM. 103 

spirit ; therefore baptism is superfluous ! Nay, he has 
the spirit ; therefore give him the symbol of the spirit. 
Let it be revealed to others what he is. He is heir to 
the inheritance ; therefore give him the title-deed. He 
is of royal lineage, — put the crown upon his head. 
He is a child of God, — baptize him. "Who shall for- 
bid water, seeing these liave received the Holy Ghost 
as well as we." 

One illustration more from the marriage ceremony ; 
and I select this for two reasons : because it is the 
type in Scripture of the union between Christ and His 
church, and because the church of Rome has called it 
a sacrament. 

A deep truth is in that error. Rome calls it a sacra- 
ment, because it is the authoritative symbol of an 
invisible flict. That invisible fact is the agreement of 
two human beings to be one. We deny it to be a 
sacrament, because, though it is the symbol of an in- 
visible fact, it is not the symbol of a spiritual fact, nor 
an eternal fact ; no spiritual truth, but only a change- 
ful human covenant. 

Now, observe the difference between an arbitrary, 
or conventional, and an authoritative ceremony of 
marriage-union. There are conventional acknowledg- 
ments of that agreement, ceremonies peculiar to cer- 
tain districts, private pledges, betrothals. In the sight 
of God those are valid ; they cannot be lightly broken 
without sin. You cannot in the courts of heaven dis- 
tinguish between an oath to God and a word pledged 
to man. He said. Let your yea be yea, and your nay 
nay. Such an engagement cannot be infringed with- 
out penalty : the penalty of frivolized hearts, and that 
habit of changefulness of attachment which is the 



104 BAPTISM. 

worst of penalties. But now, additional to that, will 
any one say that the marriage ceremony is superflu- 
ous, — that the ring he gives his wife is nothing ? It 
is everything. It is the authoritative ratification, by a 
country and before God, of that which before was, for 
all purposes of earth, unreal. Authoritative, — therein 
lies the difference. Just in that authoritativeness 
lies the question whether the ceremony is nothing, or 
everything. 

And yet remember, the ceremony itself does not 
pretend to create the fact. It only claims to realize 
the fact. It admits the fact existing previously. It 
bases itself upon a fact. Forasmuch as two persons 
have consented together, and forasmuch as a token 
and pledge of that, in the shape of a ring, has been 
given, therefore — only therefore — the appointed minis- 
ter pronounces that they are what betrothal had made 
them already in the sight of God. 

Exactly so, the autlioritativeness is the all in all 
which converts baptism from a mere ceremony into a 
sacrament. Baptism is not merely a conventional 
arrangement, exceedingly convenient, agreed on by 
men to remind themselves and one another that they 
are God's children, — but valid as a legal, eternal 
Truth, a condensed, embodied Fact. 

Is this making baptism nothing? I should rather 
say baptism is everything. Baptism saves us. 

One word now practically. I address myself to 
any one who is conscious of fault, sin-laden, strug- 
gling with the terrible question whether he has a 
right to claim God as his Father or not ; bewildered 
on the one side by Romanism, on the other by 
Calvinism. My brother ! let not either of these rob 



BAPTISM. 105 

you of your privileges. Let not Rome send you to 
the fearful questioning as to whether the mystic seed 
infused at a certain moment by an act of man remains 
in you still, or whether it has been so impaired by sin 
that henceforth there is nothing but penance, tears, 
and uncertainty, until the grave. Let not Calvinism 
send you, with terrible self-inspection, to the more 
dreadful task of searching your own soul for the 
warrant of your redemption, and deciding whether 
you have or not the feelings and the faith which give 
you a right to be one of God's elect. Better make 
up your mind at once you have not ; you have no 
feelings that entitle you to that. Take your stand 
upon the broader, sublimer basis of God's Paternity. 
God created the world ; God redeemed the world. 
Baptism proclaims separately, personally,- by name, 
to you, God created you — God redeemed you. Bap- 
tism is your warrant, — you are His child. And now, 
because you are His child, live as a child of God ; be 
redeemed from the life of evil, which is false to your 
nature, into the Life of Light and Goodness, which is the 
Truth of your Being. Scorn all that is mean; hate all 
that is false ; struggle with all that is impure. Love 
whatsoever " things are true, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things 
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; " cer- 
tain that God is on your side, and that whatever keeps 
you from Him keeps you from your own Father. 
Live the simple, lofty life which befits an heir of im- 
mortality. 



[Preached October 13, 1850.] 

ELIJAH. 

I Kings xix. 4. — " But he himself went on a day's journey into the 
wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper-tree ; and he 
requested for himself that he might die ; and said, It is enough : now, 
Lord, take away my life ; for I am not better than my fathers." 

It has been observed of the holy men of Scripture, 
that their most signal failures took place in those 
points of character for which they were remarkable 
in excellence. Moses was the meekest of men ; but it 
was Moses who " spake unadvisedly with his lips." 
St. John was the apostle of charity ; yet he is the very 
type to us of religious intolerance, in his desire to call 
down fire from heaven. St. Peter is proverbially the 
apostle of impetuous intrepidity ; yet twice he proved 
a craven. If there were anything for which EHjah is 
remarkable, we should say it was superiority to human 
weakness. Like the Baptist, he dared to arraign and 
rebuke his sovereign ; like the commander who cuts 
down the bridge behind him, leaving himself no alter- 
native but death or victory, he taunted his adversaries, 
the priests of Baal, on Mount Carmel, making them 
gnash their teeth and cut themselves with knives, but 
at the same time insuring for himself a terrible end, 

(106) 



ELIJAH. 107 

in case of failure, from his exasperated foes. And 
again, in his last hour, when he was on his way to a 
strange and unprecedented departure from this world, 
when the whirlwind and flame-chariot were ready, he 
asked for no human companionship. The bravest men 
are pardoned if one lingering feeling of human weak- 
ness clings to them at the last, and they desire a 
human eye resting on them, a human hand in theirs, 
a human presence. But Elijah would have rejected 
all. In harmony with the rest of his lonely, severe 
character, he desired to meet his Creator alone. 
Now, it was this man, — so stern, so iron, so inde- 
pendent, so above all human weakness, — of whom it is 
recorded that in his trial hour he gave way to a fit of 
petulance and querulous despondency to which there 
is scarcely found a parallel. Religious despondency, 
therefore, is our subject. 

I. The causes of Elijah's despondency. 

II. God's treatment of it. 

I. The causes of Elijah's despondency. 

1. Relaxation of physical strength. 

On the reception of Jezebel's message, Elijah flies 
for his life ; toils on the whole day ; sits down under 
a juniper-tree, faint, hungry, and travel-worn ; the gale 
of an oriental evening, damp and heavy with languid 
sweetness, breathing on his face. The prophet and 
the man give way. He longs to die ; you cannot mis- 
take the presence of causes in part purely physical. 

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Of that 
constitution, which in our ignorance we call union of 
soul and body, we know little respecting what is cause 
and what effect. We would fain believe that the mind 



108 ELIJAH. 

has power over the body ; but it is just as true that 
the body rules the mind. Causes apparently the most 
trivial — a heated room, want of exercise, a sunless 
day, a northern aspect — will make all the difference 
between happiness and unhappiness, between faith and 
doubt, between courage and indecision. To our fancy 
there is something humiliating in being thus at the 
mercy of our animal organism. We would fain find 
nobler causes for our emotions. We talk of the 
hiding of God's countenance, and the fiery darts of 
Satan. But the picture given here is true. The 
body is the channel of our noblest emotions as well 
as our sublimest sorrows. 

Two practical results follow. First, instead of vili- 
fying the body, complaining that our nobler part is 
chained down to a base partner, it is worth recollect- 
ing that the body, too, is the gift of God, in its way 
Divine, — " the temple of the Holy Ghost ; " and that 
to keep the body in temperance, soberness, and chas- 
tity, to guard it from pernicious influence, and to obey 
the laws of health, are just as much religious as they 
are moral duties; just as much obligatory on the Chris- 
tian as they are on a member of a Sanitary Committee. 
Next, there are persons melancholy by constitution, in 
whom the tendency is incurable ; you cannot exorcise 
the phantom of despondency. But it is something to 
know that it is a phantom, and not to treat it as a real- 
ity, — something taught by Elijah's history, if we only 
learn from it to be patient, and wait humbly the timo 
and good pleasure of God. 

2. Want of sympathy. " I, even I only, am left." 
Lay the stress on o^ily. The loneliness of his position 
was shocking to Elijah. Surprising this ; for Elijah 



ELIJAH. 109 

wanted no sympathy in a far harder trial on Mount 
Carmel. It was in a tone of triumph that he pro- 
claimed that he was the single, solitary prophet of the 
Lord, while BaaPs prophets were four hundred and 
fifty men. 

Observe, however, the difference. There was in 
that case an opposition which could be grappled with ; 
here, nothing against which mere manhood was avail- 
ing. The excitement was passed, — the chivalrous 
look of the thing gone. To die as a martyr, — yes, that 
were easy, in grand failure ; but to die as a felon, — to 
be hunted, caught, taken back to an ignominious death, 
— flesh and blood recoiled from that. 

And Elijah began to feel that popularity is not love. 
The world will support you when you have constrained 
its votes by a manifestation of power, and shrink from 
you when power and greatness are no longer on your 
side. " I, even I onlv, am left." 

This trial is most distinctly realized by men of Eli- 
jah's stamp, and placed under Elijah's circumstances. 
It is the penalty paid by superior mental and moral 
qualities, that such men must make up their minds to 
live without sympathy. Their feelings will be misun- 
derstood, and their projects uncomprehended. They 
must be content to live alone. It is sad to hear such 
appeal from the present to the judgment of the future. 
Poor consolation ! Elijah has been judged at that bar. 
We are his posterity ; our reverence this day is the 
judgment of posterity on him. But to Elijah what is 
that now ? Elijah is in that quiet country where the 
voice of praise and the voice of blame are alike un- 
heard. Elijah lived and died alone ; once only the bit- 
10 



110 ELIJAH. 

terness of it found expression. But what is posthu- 
mous justice to the heart that ached then ? 

What greater minds hke Ehjah's have felt intensely, 
all we have felt in our own degree. Not one of us 
but what has felt his heart aching for want of ^ym.- 
pathy. We have had our lonely hours, our days of 
disappointment, and our moments of hopelessness, — 
times when our highest feelings have been misunder- 
stood, and our purest met with ridicule. 

Days when our heavy secret was lying unshared, 
like ice upon the heart. And then the spirit gives 
way : we have wished that all were over ; that we 
could lie down tired, and rest like the children, from 
life ; that the hour was come when we could put 
down the extinguisher on the lamp, and feel the last 
grand rush of darkness on the spirit. 

Now, the final cause of this capacity for depression, 
the reason for which it is granted us, is that it may 
make God necessary. In such moments it is felt that 
sympathy beyond human is needful. Alone, the world 
against him, Elijah turns to God. " It is enough ; 
now, LordP 

3. Want of occupation. 

As long as Elijah had a prophet's work to do, severe 
as that work was, all went on healthily ; but his occu- 
pation was gone. To-morrow and the day after, what 
has he left on earth to do? The misery of having 
nothing to do proceeds from causes voluntary or invol- 
untary in their nature. Multitudes of our race, by 
circumstances over which they have no control, in 
single life or widowhood, — in straitened circum- 
stances, — are compelled to endure lonely days, and 
still more lonely nights and evenings. They who 



ELIJAH. in 

have felt the hours hang so heavy can comprehend 
p'lrt of Elijah's sadness. 

This misery, however, is sometimes voluntarily in- 
curred. In artificial civilization certain persons ex- 
empt themselves from the necessity of work. They 
eat the bread which has been procured by the sweat 
of the brow of others ; they skim the surface of the 
thought which has been ploughed by the sweat of the 
brain of others. Thev are reckoned the favored ones 
of fortune, and envied. Are they blessed ? The law 
of life is, In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat 
bread. No man can evade that law with impunity. 
Like all God's laws, it is its own executioner. It has 
strange penalties annexed to it. Would you know 
them? Go to the park, or the esplanade, or the soli- 
tude after the night of dissipation, and read the penal- 
ties of being useless in the sad, jaded, listless coun- 
tenances, — nay, in the very trifles which must be 
contrived to create excitement artificially. Yet these 
very eyes could, dull as they are, beam with intelli- 
gence ; on many of those brows is stamped the mark 
of possible nobility. The fact is, that the capacity of 
ennui is one of the signatures of man's immortality. 
It is his very greatness which makes inaction mis- 
ery. If God had made us only to be insects, with no 
nobler care incumbent on us than the preservation of 
our lives, or the pursuit of happiness, we might be 
content to flutter from sweetness to sweetness, and 
from bud to flower. But if men with souls live only 
to eat and drink and be amused, is it any wonder if 
life be darkened with despondency ? 

4. Disappointment in the expectation of success. 
On Carmel the great object for which Elijah had lived 



112 ELIJAH. 

seemed on the point of being realized. BaaPs proph- 
ets were slain ; Jehovah acknowledged with one 
voice ; false worship put down. Elijah's life-aim, the 
transformation of Israel into a kingdom of God, was 
all but accomplished. In a single day all this bright 
picture was annihilated. 

Man is to desire success, but success rarely comes. 
The wisest has written upon life its sad epitaph — *^ All 
is vanity," that is, nothingness. 

The tradesman sees the noble fortune for which he 
lived, every coin of which is the representative of so 
much time and labor spent, squandered by a spendthrift 
son. The purest statesmen find themselves at last 
neglected, and rewarded by defeat. Almost never can 
a man look back on life and say that its anticipations 
have been realized. For the most part life is disap- 
pointment, and the moments in which this is keenly 
realized are moments like this of EHjah's. 

II. Grod's treatment of it. 

1. First, he recruited his servant^s exhausted 
strength. Read the history. Miraculous meals are 
given, — then Elijah sleeps, wakes, and eats: on the 
strength of that, goes forty days' journey. In other 
words, like a wise physician, God administers food, 
rest, and exercise ; and then, and not till then, pro- 
ceeds to expostulate, — for, before, Elijah's mind was 
unfit for reasoning. 

Persons come to the ministers of God in seasons of 
despondency ; they pervert, with marvellous ingenuity, 
all the consolation which is given them, turning whole- 
some food into poison. Then we begin to perceive the 
wisdom of God's simple, homely treatment of Elijah, 



ELIJAH. 1 13 

and discover that there are spiritual cases which are 
cases for the physician rather than tlie divine. 

2. Next Jehovah calmed his stormy mind by the 
heahng influences of Nature. He commanded the 
hurricane to sweep the sky, and the earthquake to 
shake the ground. He Hghted up the heavens till 
they were one mass of fire. All this expressed and 
reflected Elijah's feelings. The mode in which Nature 
soothes us is by finding meeter and nobler utterance 
for our feelings than we can find in words, — by 
expressing and exalting them. In expression there is 
relief Elijah's spirit rose with the spirit of the storm. 
Stern, wild defiance, strange joy — all by turns were 
imaged there. Observe, " God was not in the wind," 
nor in the fire, nor in the earthquake. It was Elijah's 
stormy self reflected in the moods of the tempest, and 
giving them their character. 

Then came a calmer hour. Elijah rose in reverence, 
— felt tenderer sensations in his bosom. He opened 
his heart to gentler influences, till at last out of the 
manifold voices of Nature there seemed to speak, not 
the stormy passions of the man, but the ^' still small 
voice " of the harmony and the peace of God. 

There are some spirits which must go through a dis- 
cipline analogous to that sustained by EHjah. The 
storm-struggle must precede the still small voice. 
There are minds which must be convulsed with doubt 
before they can repose in faith. There are hearts 
which must be broken with disappointment before they 
can rise into hope. There are dispositions which, like 
Job, must have all things taken from them, before they 
can find all things again in God. Blessed is the man 
who, when the tempest has spent its fury, recognizes 

10* 



114 ELIJAH. 

his Father's voice in its undertone, and bares his head 
and bows his knee, as Elijah did. To such spirits, 
generally those of a stern, rugged cast, it seems as if 
God had said : " In the still sunshine and ordinary 
ways of life you cannot meet Me ; but, like Job, in the 
desolation of the tempest you shall see My Form, and 
hear My Voice, and know that your Redeemer liveth." 

3. Besides, God made him feel the earnestness of life. 
What doest thou here, Elijah ? Life is for doing : a 
prophet's life for nobler doing, — and the prophet was 
not doing, but moaning. 

Such a voice repeats itself to all of us, rousing us 
from our lethargy, or our despondency, or our pro- 
tracted leisure, " What doest thou here ? " — here in 
this short life. There is work to be done ; evil put 
down — God's church purified — good men encour- 
aged — doubting men directed — a country saved — 
time going — life a dream — eternity long — one 
chance, and but one forever. What doest thou here ? 

Then he went on further, " Arise, go on thy way.'^ 
That speaks to us : on thy way. Be up and doing — 
fill up every hour, leaving no crevice, nor craving for 
a remorse or a repentance to creep through afterwards. 
Let not the mind brood on self; save it from specula- 
tion, from those stagnant moments in which the awful 
teachings of the spirit grope into the unfathomable 
unknown, and the heart torments itself with questions 
which are insoluble except to an active life. For the 
awful future becomes intelligible only in the light of 
a felt and active present. Go, return on thy way if 
thou art desponding, — on thy way^ health of spirit 
will return. 

4. He completed the cure by the assurance of vie- 



ELIJAH. 115 

tory. " Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel 
who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So, then, 
Elijah's life had been no failure, after all. Seven 
thousand at least in Israel had been braced and 
encouraged by his example, and silently blessed him, 
perhaps, for the courage which they felt. In God's 
world, for those that are in earnest there is no failure. 
No work truly done, no word earnestly spoken, 
no sacrifice freely made, was ever made in vain. 
Never did the cup of cold water given for Christ's 
sake lose its reward. 

We turn naturally from this scene to a still darker 
hour, and more august agony. If ever failure seemed 
to rest on a noble life, it was when the Son of Man, 
deserted by His friends, heard the cry which pro- 
claimed that the Pharisees had successfully drawn the 
net round their Divine Victim. Yet, from that very 
hour of defeat and death there went forth the world's 
life, — from that very moment of apparent failure 
there proceeded forth into the ages the spirit of the 
conquering Cross. Surely, if the Cross says any- 
thing, it says that apparent defeat is real victory, and 
that there is a heaven for those who have nohly ana 
truly failed on earth. 

Distinguish, therefore, between the Real and the. 
Apparent. Elijah's apparent success was in the shouts 
of Mount Carmel: his real success was in the unos- 
tentatious, unsurmised obedience of the seven thou- 
sand who had taken his God for their God. 

A lesson for all. For teachers who lay their heads 
down at night sickening over their thankless task. 
Remember the power of indireGt influences ; those 
which distil from a life, not from a sudden, brilliant 



116 ELIJAH. 

effort. The former never fail; the latter, often. There 
is good done of which we can never predicate the 
when or where. Not in the flushing of a pupiPs 
cheek, or the glistening of an attentive eye ; not in 
the shining results of an examination, does your real 
success lie. It lies in that invisible influence on char- 
acter which He alone can read who counted the seven 
thousand nameless ones in Israel. 

For ministers, again, — what is ministerial success ? 
Crowded churches — full aisles — attentive congre- 
gations — the approval of the religious world — much 
impression produced ? Elijah thought so ; and when 
he found out his mistake, and discovered that the 
applause on Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, 
his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Min- 
isterial success lies in altered lives and obedient hum- 
ble hearts ; unseen work recognized in the judgment- 
day. 

A public man's success ? That which can be 
measured by feast-days, and the number of journals 
which espouse his cause ? Deeper, deeper far must 
he work who works for Eternity. In the eye of 
That, nothing stands but gold. Real work — all else 
perishes. 

Get below appearances, below glitter and show. 
Plant your foot upon reality. Not in the jubilee of 
the myriads on Carmel, but in the humble silence of 
the hearts of the seven thousand, lay the proof that 
Elijah had not lived in vain. 



YII. 

[Preached January 12, 1851.] 
NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

Written by David, after a double crime : Uriah put in the forefront oi 
the battle, — the wife of the murdered man taken, «&c. 

A DARKER guilt you will scarcely find : kingly power 
abused — worst passions yielded to. Yet this psalm 
breathes from a spirit touched with the finest sensibil- 
ities of spiritual feeling. 

Two sides of our mysterious two-fold being here. 
Something in ns near to hell ; something strangely 
near to God. " Half beast — half devil ?" No : rather 
half diabolical — half divine : half demon — half God. 
This man mixing with the world's sins in such sort 
that we shudder. But he draws near the majesty of 
God, and becomes softened, purified, melted. 

Good to observe this that we rightly estimate : 
generously of fallen humanity ; moderately of highest 
saintship. 

In our best estate and in our purest moments there 
is a something of the Devil in us, which, if it could bo 
known, would make men shrink from us. The germs 
of the worst crimes are in us all. In our deepest 
degradation there remains something sacred, uudefiled, 



118 NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

the pledge and gift of our better nature ; a germ of 
indestructible life, like the grains of wheat among the 
cerements of a mummy, surviving through three 
thousand years ; which may be planted, and live, and 
grow again. 

It is this truth of human feeling which makes the 
Psalms, more than any other portion of the Old Testa- 
ment, the link of union between distant ages. The 
historical books need a rich store of knowledge before 
they can be a modern book of life ; but the Psalms 
are the records of individual experience. Personal 
religion is the same in all ages. The deeps of our 
humanity remain unruffled by the storms of ages 
which change the surface. This psalm, written three 
thousand years ago, might have been written yester- 
day ; describes the vicissitudes of spiritual life in an 
Englishman as truly as of a Jew. '^ Not of an age, 
but for all time;" 

I. Scripture estimate of sin. 

II. Spiritual restoration. 

I. Scriptural estimate of sin. 

1. Personal accountability. '^ My sin," — strange, 
but true. It is hard to believe the sin we do our own. 
One lays the blame on circumstances ; another, on 
those who tempted ; a third, on Adam, Satan, or his 
own nature, as if it were not himself. " The fathers 
have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are 
set on edge." 

In this psalm no such selfexculpation. Personal 
accountability throughout. No source of evil sug- 
gested or conceived but his own guilty will; no shifting 
of responsibility ; no pleading of a passionate nature. 



NOTES ON PSALM LI. % 119 

or royal exposure as peculiar. " I have sinned.'^ " I 
acknowledge m2/ transgression ; my sin is ever before 
me." 

One passage only seems at first to breathe a dif 
ferent tone. " In sin did my mother conceive me." 
By some interpreted as referring to hereditary sin ; 
alleged as a proof of the doctrine of transmitted guilt, 
as if David traced the cause of his act to his maternal 
character. 

True as the doctrine is that physical and moral 
qualities are transmissible, you do not find that doc- 
trine here. It is not in excuse, but in exaggeration 
of his fault, that David speaks. He lays on himself 
the blame of a tainted nature, instead of that of a 
single fault : not a murderer only, but of a murderous 
nature. " Conceived in sin." From first moments 
up till then, he saw sin — sin — sin ; nothing but sin. 

Learn the individual character of sin, — its personal 
origin and personal identity. There can be no trans- 
ference of it. It is individual and incommunicable. 
My sin cannot be your sin, nor yours mine. 

Conscience, when it is healthy, ever speaks thus : 
" My transgression." It was not the guilt of them that 
tempted you. They have theirs ; but each, as a separate 
agent, his own degree of guilt. Yours is your own ; 
the violation of your own and not another's sense of 
duty ; solitary, aAvful, unshared, adhering to you alone, 
of all the spirits of the universe. 

Perilous to refer the evil in us to any source out of 
and beyond ourselves. In this way penitence becomes 
impossible — fictitious. 

2. Estimated as hateful to God. " Against Thee, Thee 
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight ; 



120 * NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest,and 
be clear when Thou judgest." The simple judgment 
of the conscience. But another estimate, born of the 
intellect, comes in collision with this religion, and be- 
wilders it. Look over life, and you will find it hard to 
believe that sin is against God ; that it is not rather 
for Ilim. 

Undeniable, that out of evil comes good ; that evil 
is the resistance in battle, with which good is created 
and becomes possible. Physical evil, for example. Hun- 
ger, an evil, is the parent of industry, human works, 
all that man has done — beautifies life. The storm-fire 
burns up the forest, and slays man and beast; but 
purifies the air of contagion. Lately, the tragic death 
of eleven fishermen elicited the sympathy and charities 
of thousands. 

Even moral evil is also generative of good. Peter's 
cowardice enabled him to be a comforter ; " when he 
was converted, to strengthen his brethren." David's 
crime was a vantage-ground, from which he rose 
through penitence nearer to God. Through it this 
psalm has blessed ages. But if the sin had not been 
done ! 

Now, contemplating this, we begin to perceive that 
evil is God's instrument. " If evil be in the city, the 
Lord hath done it." Then the contemplative intel- 
lectualist looks over this scene of things, and compla- 
cently approves of evil as God's contrivance, as much 
as good is ; a temporary necessity, worthy of His wis- 
dom to create. And then, can He truly hate that 
which He has made ? Can His agent be His enemy ? 
Is it not short-sightedness to be angry with it? Not 
the antagonist of God, surely, but His creature and 



NOTES ON PSALM LI. 121 

faithful servant, this evil. Sin cannot be " against 
God." 

Thus arises a horrible contradiction between the 
instincts of the conscience and the judgment of the 
understanding. Judas must have been, says the intel- 
lect, God's agent as much as Paul. " Why doth He 
yet find fault? for who hath resisted His will? .Do 
not evil men perform His will ? Why should I blame 
sin in another or myself, seeing it is necessary ? Why 
not say, at once. Crime and Virtue are the same ? " 

Thoughts such as these, at some time or another, 
I doubt not, haunt and perplex us all. Conscience 
is overborne by the intellect. Some time during 
every life, the impossibility of reconciling these two 
verdicts is felt, and the perplexity confuses action. 
Men sin with a secret peradventure behind. " Per- 
haps evil is not so bad after all — perhaps good — who 
knows?" 

Remember, therefore, in matters practical. Conscience, 
not intellect, is our guide. Unsophisticated conscience 
ever speaks this language of the Bible. 

We cannot help believing that our sentiments tow- 
ards Right and Wrong are a reflection of God's. 
That we call just and true, we cannot but think is 
just and true in His sight. That which seems base 
and vile to us, we are compelled to think is so to 
Him; and this in proportion as we act up to duty. 
In that proportion we feel that His sentiments coincide 
with ours. 

In such moments, when the God within us speaks 
most peremptorily and distinctly, we feel that the lan- 
guage of this psalm is true ; and that no other lan- 
guage expresses the truth. Sin is not for God, — 
11 



122 NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

cannot be; but "against God." An opposition to 
His will, a contradiction to His nature ; not a coinci- 
dence with it. He abhors it, — will banish it, and 
annihilate it. 

In these days, when French sentimentalism, theo- 
logical dreams, and political speculations, are unset- 
tling the old landmarks with fearful rapidity, if we do 
n ot hold fast, and that simply and firmly, that first prin- 
ciple, that right is right and wrong wrong, all our 
moral judgments will become confused, and the peni- 
tence of the noblest hearts an absurdity. For what 
can be more absurd than knowingly to reproach our- 
selves for that which God intended? 

3. Sin estimated as separation from God. Two 
views of sin : The first reckoning it evil, because 
consequences of pain are annexed ; the second, evil, 
because a contradiction of our own nature and God's 
will. 

In this psalm the first is ignored ; the second, im- 
plied throughout. " Take not thy Holy Spirit from 
me." — " Have mercy upon me," does not mean. Save 
me from torture. You cannot read the psalm and 
think so. It is not the trembling of a craven spirit in 
anticipation of torture, but the agonies of a noble one 
in the horror of being evil. 

If the first view were true, then, if God were by 
an act of will to reverse the consequences, and annex 
pain to goodness and joy to crime, to lie and injure 
would become Duty as much as before they were 
sins. But penalties do not change good into evil. 
Good is forever good ; evil is forever evil. God Him- 
self could not alter that by a command. Eternal hell 



NOTES ON PSALM LI. 123 

could not make Truth wrong ; nor everlasting pleasure 
ennoble sensuality. 

Do you fancy that men like David, shuddering in 
sight of evil, dreaded a material hell ? I venture to 
say, into true penitence the idea of punishment never 
enters. If it did, it would be almost a relief; but, ! 
those moments in which a selfish act has appeared 
more hideous than any pain which the fancy of a Dante 
could devise ! when the idea of the strife of self-will in 
battle with the loving will of God, prolonged forever, 
has painted itself to the imagination as the real Infinite 
Hell ! when self-concentration and the extinction of 
love in the soul has been felt as the real damnation of 
the Devil nature ! 

And recollect how sparingly Christianity appeals to 
the prudential motives. Use them it does, because 
they are motives — but rarely. Retribution is a truth; 
and Christianity, true to nature, warns of retribution. 
But, except to rouse men sunk in forgetfulness, or 
paltering with truth, it almost never appeals to it ; 
and never with the hope of eliciting from such motives 
as the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell, high good- 
ness. 

To do good for reward, the Son of Man declares to 
be the sinner's religion. " If ye lend to them who 
lend to you, what thank have ye ? '^ — and He distinctly 
proclaims that alone to be spiritually good, " the 
nghteousness of God," which " does good, hoping for 
nothing in return ; " adding, as the only motive, " that 
ye may be the children of (that is, resemble) your 
Father which is in Heaven ; for He maketh His sun to 
shine on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the 
just and on the unjust." 



124 NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

II. Restoration. 

1. First step, — Sacrifice of a broken spirit. 

Observe the accurate and even Christian perception 
of the real meaning of sacrifice by the ancient spiritu- 
ally-minded Jews. 

Sacrifice has its origin in two feelings : one human ; 
one divine or inspired. 

True feeling ; something to be given to God ; sur- 
rendered; that God must be worshipped with our 
best. 

Human ; added to this — mixed up with it — is the 
fancy that this sacrifice pleases God because of the 
loss or pain which it inflicts. Then men attribute to 
God their own revengeful feelings; think that the 
philosophy of sacrifice consists in the necessity of 
punishing; call it justice to let the blow fall some- 
where, — no matter where ; blood must flow. Hence, 
heathen sacriflces were ofi'ered to appease the Deity, 
to buy off His wrath, — the purer the offering the 
better. Iphigenia, — to glut His fury. Instances 
illustrating the feeling: Zaleucus, — two eyes given 
to the law ; barbarian rude notions of justness mixed 
up with a father's instincts. Polycrates and Amasis, — 
seal sacrificed to avert the anger of heaven, supposed 
to be jealous of mortal prosperity. These notions 
mixed with Judaism; nay, are mixed up now with 
Christian conceptions of Christ's sacrifice. 

Jewish sacrifices therefore presented two thoughts : 
- - to the spiritual, true notions ; to the unspiritual, 
false ; and expressed these feelings for each. But 
men like David felt that what lay beneath all sacrifice, 
as its ground and meaning, was surrender to God's 
will ; that a man's best is himself; and to sacrifice this 



NOTES ON PSALM LI. 125 

is the true sacrifice. By degrees they came to see 
that the sacrifice was but a form — typical ; and that 
it might be superseded. 

Compare this psalm with Psalm L. 

They were taught this chiefly through sin and suf- 
fering. Conscience, truly wounded, could not be 
appeased by these sacrifices which were offered year 
by year continually. The selfish coward, who saw in 
sin nothing terrible but the penalty, could be satisfied, 
of course. Believing that the animal bore his punish- 
ment, he had nothing more to dread. But they who 
felt sin to be estrangement from God, who were not 
thinking of punishment — what relief could be given to 
them by being told that the 2^€,nalty of their sins was 
borne by another being? They felt that only by sur- 
render to God could conscience be at rest. 

Learn, then, — God does not wish pain, but good- 
ness ; not suffering, but you — yourself — your heart. 

Even in the sacrifice of Christ, God wished only 
this. It was precious not because it was pain; but 
because the pain, the blood, the death, were the last 
and highest evidence of entire surrender. — Satisfac- 
tion ? Yes, the blood of Christ satisfied. Why ? 
Because God can glut His vengeance in innocent 
blood more sweetly than in guilty? Because, like the 
barbarian Zaleucus, so long as the whole penalty is 
paid. He cares not by whom ? Or, was it because for 
the first time He saw human nature a copy of the 
Divine nature ; the will of Man the Son perfectly co- 
incident with the will of God the Father ; the Love of 
Deity for the first time exhibited by man ; obedience 
entire, " unto death, even the death of the cross " ? 

Was that the sacrifice which He saw in His beloved 
11* 



126 NOTES ON PSALM LI. 

Son wherewith He was well pleased ? Was that the 
sacrifice of Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, of- 
fered Himself without spot to God ; the sacrifice once 
offered which hath perfected forever them that are 
sanctified ? 

2. Last step, — Spirit of Liberty. Thy free spirit, — 
literally, princely. But the translation is right. A 
princely is a free spirit; unconstrained. Hence, St. 
James, " the royal law of liberty." 

Two classes of motives may guide to acts of seeming 
goodness : — 1. Prudential. 2. Generous. 

The agent of the Temperance Society appeals to 
prudential motives when he demonstrates the evils of 
intoxication; enlists the aid of anatomy ; contrasts the 
domestic happiness and circumstantial comfort of the 
temperate home with that of the intemperate. 

An appeal to the desire of happiness and fear of 
misery. A motive, doubtless ; and of unquestionable 
potency. All I say is, that from this class of motives 
comes nothing of the highest stamp. 

Prudential motives will move men ; but compare the 
rush of population from east to west for gold with a 
similar rush in the time of the Crusades. A dream — 
a fancy ; but an appeal to generous and unselfish 
emotions ; to enthusiasm which has in it no reflex 
consideration of personal greed. In the one case, 
simply a transfer of population, with vices and habits 
unchanged ; in the other, a sacrifice of home, country, 
all. 

Tell men that salvation is personal happiness, and 
damnation personal misery, and that goodness consists 
in seeking the one and avoiding the other, and you 
will get religionists ; but poor, stunted, dwarfish, — 



NOTES ON PSALM LI. 127 

asking, with painful self-consciousness, Am I saved ? 
am I lost ? Prudential considerations about a distant 
happiness, conflicting with passionate impulses to 
secure a near and present one ; men moving in 
shackles, — " letting I dare not wait upon I would." 

Tell men that God is Love ; that Right is Right, 
and Wrong Wrong ; let them cease to admire philan- 
thropy, and begin to love men ; cease to pant for 
heaven, and begin to love God : then the spirit of lib- 
erty begins. 

When fear has done its work, — whose oflSce is not 
to create holiness, but to arrest conscience, — and self- 
abasement has set in in earnest, then the Free Spirit 
of God begins to breathe upon the soul like a gale 
from a healthier climate, refreshing it with a more 
generous and a purer love. Prudence is no longer 
left in painful and hopeless struggle with desire: 
Love bursts the shackles of the soul, and we are free. 



YIII. 

[Preached March 2, 1851.] 

OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 

John vii. 17. — "If any man will do Ms will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." 

The first thing we have to do is to put ourselves in 
possession of the history of these words. 

Jesus taught in the temple during the Feast of Tab- 
ernacles. The Jews marvelled at His spiritual wis- 
dom. The cause of wonder was the want of scholas- 
tic education : " How knoweth this man letters, never 
having learned ? " They had no conception of any 
source of wisdom beyond learning. 

He Himself gave a different account of the matter. 
" My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." 
And how he came possessed of it, speaking humanly. 
He taught (chap. v. 30) : " My judgment is just, be- 
cause I seek not my own will, but the will of the 
Father which hath sent me." 

That principle whereby He attained spiritual judg- 
ment or wisdom He extends to all. ^' If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" 
Here, then, manifestly, there are two opinions respect' 

'*ng the origin of spiritual knowledge : 

(128) 



OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OP SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 129 

1. The popular one of the Jews: relying on a culti- 
vated understanding. 

2. The principle of Christ, which relied on trained 
affections and habits of obedience. 

What is Truth? Study, said the Jews. Act, said 
Christ, and you shall know. A very precious princi- 
ple to hold by in these days ; and a very pregnant one 
of thought to us, who during the next few days must 
be engaged in the contemplation of crime, and to 
whom the question will suggest itself. How can men's 
lives be made true ? 

Religious controversy is fast settling into a conflict 
between two great extreme parties : those who be- 
lieve everything, and those who believe nothing — 
the disciples of credulity, and the disciples of scep- 
ticism. 

The first rely on authority. 

Foremost among these, and the only self-consistent 
ones, are the adherents of the Church of Rome : 
and into this body, by logical consistency, ought to 
merge all — Dissenters, Churchmen, Bible Christians 
— who receive their opinions because their sect, their 
church, or their documents, assert them, not because 
they are true eternally in themselves. 

The second class rely solely on a cultivated under- 
standing. This is the root-principle of Rationalism. 
Enlighten, they say, and sin will disappear. En- 
lighten, and we shall know all that can be known of 
God. Sin is an error of the understanding, not a 
crime of the will. Illuminate the understanding, 
show man that sin is folly, and sin will disappear. 
Political Economy will teach public virtue ; knowl- 
edge of anatomy will arrest the indulgence of the 



130 0BEDIENC1E THE ORGAN OF 

passions. Show tlie drunkard the inflamed tissues 
of the brain, and he will be sobered hy fear and 
reason. 

Only enlighten, and spiritual truths will be tested. 
When the anatomist shall have hit on a right method 
of dissection, and appropriated sensation to this fila- 
ment of the brain, and the religious sentiment to that 
fibre, we shall know whether there be a soul or not, 
and whether consciousness will survive physical disso- 
lution. When the chemist shall have discovered the 
principle of life, and found cause behind cause, we 
shall know whether the last cause of All is a Personal 
Will or a lifeless Force. 

Concerning whom I only remark now, that these 
disciples of scepticism become easily disciples of cre- 
dulity. It is instructive to see how they who sneer at 
Christian mysteries as old wives' fables bow in abject 
reverence before Egyptian mysteries of three thousand 
years' antiquity ; and how they who have cast off a 
God believe in the veriest imposture, and have blind 
faith in this most vulgar juggling. Scepticism and 
credulity meet. Nor is it difficult to explain. Dis- 
trusting everything, they doubt their own conclusions 
and their own mental powers ; and that for which 
they cannot account presents itself to them as super- 
natural and mysterious. Wonder makes them more 
credulous than those they sneer at. 

In opposition to both these systems, stands the 
Christianity of Christ. 

1. Christ never taught on personal authority. " My 
doctrine is not mine." He taught "not as the 
scribes." They dogmatized: because "it was writ- 
ten," stickled for maxims, and lost principles. His 



SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 131 

authority was the authority of Truth, not of person- 
ality : He commanded men to believe, not because He 
said it; but he said it because it was true. Hence 
John xii. 47, 48, " If any man hear my words and 
believe not, I judge him not : the word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." 

2. He never taught that cultivation of the under- 
standing would do all ; but exactly the reverse. And 
so taught His apostles. St. Paul taught, — " The 
world by wisdom knew not God." His Master said, 
not that clear intellect will give you a right heart, but 
that a right heart and a pure life will clarify the intel- 
lect. Not, Become a man of letters and learning, and 
you will attain spiritual freedom; but. Do rightly, and 
you will judge justly : Obey, and you will know. — 
" My judgment is just, because I seek not mine own 
will, but the will of the Father which sent me." — " If 
any man will do His will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of 
myself" 

I. The knowledge of the Truth, or Christian knowl- 
edge. 

II. The condition on which it is attainable. 

Christian knowledge, — " he shall know." Its ob- 
ject, — " the doctrine." Its degree, certainty, — " shall 
hnow.''^ 

Doctrine is now, in our modern times, a word of 
limited meaning, being simply opposed to practical. 
For instance, the . Sermon on the Mount would be 
called practical ; St. Paul's epistles, doctrinal. But in 
Scripture doctrine means broadly teaching ; anything 
that is taught is doctrine. Christ's doctrine embraces 



132 OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF 

the whole range of his teachiDg — every principle and 
every precept. Let us select three departments of 
^' doctrine " in which the principle of the text will be 
found true. " If any man will do His will, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself." 

1. It holds good in speculative truth. If any man 
will do God's will, he shall know what is truth and 
what is error. Let us see how wilfulness and selfish- 
ness hinder impartiality. How comes it that men are 
almost always sure to arrive at the conclusions reached 
by their own party? Surely because fear, interest, 
vanity, or the desire of being reckoned sound and judi- 
cious, or party spirit, bias them. Personal prospects, 
personal antipathies — ^ these determine most men's 
creed. How will you remove this hindrance ? By 
increased cultivation of mind? Why, the Romanist is as 
accomplished as the Protestant, and learning is found 
in the Church and out of it. You are not sure that 
that high mental cultivation will lead a man either to 
Protestantism or the Church of England. Surely, 
then, by removing self-will, and so only, can the 
hindrance to right opinions be removed. Take away 
the last trace of interested feeling, and the way is 
cleared for men to come to an approximation towards 
unity, even in judgment on points speculative ; and so 
he that will do God's will shall know of the doctrine. 

2. In practical truths the principle is true. It is 
more true to say that our opinions depend upon our 
lives and habits, than to say that our lives depend 
upon our opinions, which is only now and then true. 
The fact is, men think in a certain mode on these 
matters, because their life is of a certain character, 



SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 133 

and their opinions are only invented afterwards as a 
defence for their life. 

For instance, St. Paul speaks of a maxim among the 
Corinthians, — "Let us eat and drink, /or to-morrow 
we die." They excused their voluptuousness on the 
ground of its consistency with their sceptical creed. 
Life w^as short. Death came to-morrow. There was 
no hereafter. Therefore it was quite consistent to 
live for pleasure. But who does not see that the creed 
was the result, and not the cause, of the life ? Who 
does not see that Ji7'st they ate and drank, and then 
believed to-morrow we die ? " Getting and spendiiig, 
we lay waste our powers." Eating and drinking, we 
lose sight of the life to come. When the immortal is 
overborne and smothered in the life of the flesh, how 
can men believe in the life to come ? Then disbeliev- 
ing, they mistook the cause for the effect. Their 
moral habits and creed were in perfect consistency; 
yet it was the life that formed the creed, not the creed 
that formed the life. Because they were sensualists, 
immortality had become incredible. 

Again, slavery is defended philosophically. The 
negro on his skull and skeleton, they say, has God's 
intention of his servitude written ; he is the inferior 
animal, therefore it is right to enslave him. Did this 
doctrine precede the slave-trade ? Did man arrive at 
it, and then, in consequence, conscientiously proceed 
with human traffic ? Or, was it invented to defend 
a practice existing already, — the offspring of self- 
interest ? Did not men first make slaves, and then 
search about for reasons to make their conduct plau- 
sible to themselves? 

So, too, a belief in predestination is sometimes 
12 



134 OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF 

alleged in excuse of crime. But a man wlio suffers 
his will to be overpowered naturally comes to believe 
that he is the sport of fate ; feeling powerless, he be- 
lieves that God's decree has made him so. But let 
him but put forth one act of loving will, and then, as 
the niglitmare of a dream is annihilated by an effort, 
so the incubus of a belief in tyrannous destiny is dis- 
sipated the moment a man wills to do the Will of Grod. 
Observe, how he knows of the doctrine, directly he 
does the Will. 

There is another thing said respecting this knowl- 
edge of Truth. It respects the degree of certainty, — 
" he shall hnow,^ not he shall have an opinion. There 
is a wide distinction between supposing and knowing ; 
between fancy and conviction ; between opinion and 
belief. Whatever rests on authority remains only 
supposition. You have an opinion when you know 
what others think. You know when you feel. In 
matters practical you know only so far as you can do. 
Read a work on the '^ Evidences of Christianity," and 
it may become highly probable that Christianity, &c., 
are true. That is an opinion. Feel God ; do His 
will till the Absolute Imperative within you speaks as 
with a living voice, — thou shalt, and thou shalt not ; 
and then you do not think — you know — that there is 
God. That is a conviction and a belief 

Have Ave never seen how a child, simple and near to 
God, cuts asunder a web of sophistry with a single 
direct question? How, before its steady look and 
simple argument, some fashionable utterer of a con- 
ventional falsehood has been abashed ? How a believ- 
ing Christian scatters the forces of scepticism, as a 
morning ray, touching the mist on the mountain side. 



SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 135 

makes it vanish into thin air ? And there are few 
more glorious moments of our humanity than those in 
which Faith does battle against intellectual proofs 
when, for example, after reading a sceptical book, or 
hearing a cold-blooded materialist's demonstration, in 
which God, the soul, and life to come, are proved 
impossible, up rises the heart, in all the giant might 
of its immortality, to do battle with the understanding, 
and with the simple argument, '^ I fed them in my 
best and highest moments to be true/' annihilates the 
sophistries of logic. 

These moments of profound faith do not come 
once for all ; they vary with the degree and habit of 
obedience. There is a plant which blossoms once 
in a hundred years. Like it, the soul blossoms only 
now and then in a space of years ; but these moments 
are the glory and the heavenly glimpses of our purest 
humanity. 

II. The condition on which knowledge of truth is 
attainable. "If any man wiU do His will, he shaU 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself." 

This universe is governed by laws. At the bottom 
of everything here there is a law. Things are in this 
way, and not that : we call that a law or condition. 
All departments have their own laws. By submission 
to them you make them your own. Obey the laws 
of the body — such laws as say. Be temperate and 
chaste. Or of the mind — such laws as say. Fix the 
attention, strengthen by exercise ; and then their 
prizes are yours, — health, strength, pliability of mus- 
cle, tenaciousness of memory, nimbleness of imagina- 



136 OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF 

tion, &c. Obey the laws of your spiritual being, and 
it has its prizes, too. For instance, the condition or 
law of a peaceful life is submission to the laws of 
meekness : " Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- 
herit the earth." The condition of the Beatific Vision 
is a pure heart and lif^ : " Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God." To the impure, God is 
simply invisible. The condition annexed to a sense of 
God's presence — in other words, that without which 
a sense of God's presence cannot be — is obedience 
to the laws of Love : " If we love one another, God 
dweUeth in us, and His Love is perfected in us." 
The condition of spiritual wisdom and certainty in 
truth is obedience to the will of God — surrender of 
private wiU: "If any man will do His wiU, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself" 

In every department of knowledge, therefore, there 
is an appointed " organ," or instrument for discovery 
of its specific truth, and for appropriating its specific 
blessings. In the world of sense, the empirical intel- 
lect; in that world the Baconian philosopher is su- 
preme. His Novum Organon is experience ; he knows 
by experiment of touch, sight, &g. The religious man 
may not contravene his assertions, — he is lord in his 
own province. But in the spiritual world the "organ" 
of the scientific man, sensible experience, is powerless. 
If the chemist, geologist, physiologist, come back from 
their spheres and say. We find in the laws of affinity, 
in the deposits of past ages, in the structure of the 
human frame, no trace nor token of a God, I simply 
reply, I never expected you would. Obedience and 
self-surrender is the sole organ by which we gain u 



SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 137 

Imowledge of that which cannot be seen nor felt. 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." .... And just as 
by copying perpetually a master painter's works we 
get at last an instinctive and infallible power of recog- 
nizing his touch, so, by copying and doing God's will, 
we recognize what is His, — we know of the teaching, 
whether it be of God, or whether it be an arbitrary 
invention of a human self. 

2. Observe the universality of the law. " If any 
man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" 
The law was true of the Man Christ Jesus Himself. 
He tells us it is true of all other men. 

In God's universe there are no favorites of heaven 
who may transgress the laws of the universe Avith 
impunity ; none who can take fire in the hand and 
not be burnt; no enemies of heaven who if they 
sow com will reap nothing. The law is just and true 
to all : " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap." 

In God's spiritual universe tliere are no favorites 
of heaven who can attain knowledge and spiritual 
wisdom apart from obedience. There are none repro- 
bate by an eternal decree, who can surrender self, 
and in all things submit to God, and yet fail of spirit- 
ual convictions. It is not, therefore, a rare, partial 
condescension of God, arbitrary and causeless, which 
gives knowledge of the Truth to some, and shuts 
it out from others ; but a vast, universal, glorious 
law. The light lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world. " If any man wiU do His will, he shall 
know." 

See the beauty of this Divine arrangement. If the 
12* 



138 OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF 

certainty of truth depended upon the proof of mira- 
cles, prophecy, or the discoveries of science, then 
Truth would be in the reach chiefly of those who can 
weigh evidence, investigate history and languages, 
study by experiment ; whereas, as it is, " The meeh will 
He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach 
His way." — ^' Thus saith the high and lofty One that 
inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in 
the high and holy place, with him also that is of a con- 
trite and humble spirit." The humblest and the weak- 
est may know more of man, of moral evil and of 
good, by a single act of charity, or a prayer of self- 
surrender, than all the sages can teach ; ay, or all the 
theologians can dogmatize upon. 

They know nothing, perhaps, these humble ones, 
of evidence ; but they are sure that Christ is their 
Redeemer. They cannot tell what matter is ; but they 
know that they are Spirits. They know nothing of the 
argument from design ; but they feel God. The truths 
of God are spiritually discerned. They have never 
learned letters ; but they have reached the Truth of 
Life. 

3. Annexed to this condition, or a part of it, is 
earnestness. " If any man will do His will." Now, 
that word '' will " is not the will of the future tense, 
but will meaning volition. If any man wills, resolves, 
has the mind to do the will of God. So, then, it is 
not a chance, fitful obedience that leads us to the 
Truth, nor an obedience paid while happiness lasts 
and no longer, — but an obedience rendered in entire- 
ness and in earnest. It is not written. If any man 
does His will, — but if any man has the spirit and 
desire. If we are in earnest we shall persevere, like 



SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 139 

the Syrophenician woman, even though the ear of the 
universe seem deaf, and Christ himself appear to bid 
us back. If we are not in earnest, difficulties will dis- 
courage us. Because will is wanting, we shall be 
asking, still in ignorance and doubt, What is truth ? 

All this will seem to many time misspent. They go 
to church because it is the custom ; all Christians be- 
lieve it is the established religion. But there are 
hours — and they come to us all at some period of life 
or other — w^hen the hand of Mystery seems to \io 
heavy on the soul ; when some life-shock scatters exist- 
ence, — leaves it a blank and dreary waste henceforth 
forever, and there appears nothing of hope in all the 
expanse which stretches out, except that merciful gate 
of death which opens at the end ; — hours when the 
sense of misplaced or ill-requited affection, the feeling 
of personal worthlessness, the uncertainty and mean- 
ness of all human aims, and a doubt of all human good- 
ness, unfix the soul from all its old moorings, and leave 
it drifting, drifting over the vast Infinitude, with an 
awful sense of solitariness. Then the man whose 
faith rested on outward Authority, and not on inward 
life, wiU find it give way, — the authority of the Priest; 
the authority of the Church ; or merely the authority 
of a document proved by miracles and backed by 
prophecy; the soul, — conscious life hereafter, — God, 
— wiU be an awful desolate Perhaps. Well, in such 
moments you doubt all, — whether Christianity be 
true ; whether Christ was man, or God, or a beautiful 
fable. You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, What is 
Truth ? In such an hour what remains ? I reply, 
Obedience. Leave those thoughts for the present. 
Act : be merciful and gentle — honest ; force yourself 



140 OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OP SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 

to abound in little services ; try to do good to others ; 
be true to the Duty that you know. That must be 
right, whatever else is uncertain. And by all the laws 
of the human heart, by the word of God, you shall no+ 
be left to doubt. Do that much of the will of God 
which is plain to you, " You shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God." 



IX. 

[Preached March 30, 1851.] 

RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 

Psalm xlii. 1-3. — "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so 
panteth my soul after thee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for 
the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears 
have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, 
Where is thy God ? " 

The value of the public reading of the Psalms is, 
that they express for us indirectly those deeper feel- 
ings which there would be a sense of indelicacy in 
expressing directly. 

Example of Joseph: asking after his father, and 
blessing his brothers, as it were under the personality 
of another. 

There are feelings of which we do not speak to 
each other ; they are too sacred and too delicate. Such 
are most of our feelings to God. If we do speak of 
them, they lose their fragrance, — become coarse; 
nay, there is even a sense of indelicacy and exposure. 

Now, the Psalms afford precisely the right relief for 
this feeling. Wrapped up in the forms of poetry (meta- 
phor, &c.), that which might seem exaggerated is ex- 
cused by those who do not feel it j while they who do 

(141) 



142 RELIGIOUS DEPEESSION. 

can read them, applying them, without the suspicion 
of uttering their own feelings. Hence their soothing 
power ; and hence, while other portions of Scripture 
may become obsolete, they remain the most precious 
parts of the Old Testament. For the heart of man is 
the same in all ages. 

'J'his forty-second Psalm contains the utterance of a 
sorrow of which men rarety speak. There is a grief 
worse than lack of bread or loss of friends ; man in 
former times called it spiritual desertion. But at times 
the utterances of this solitary grief are, as it were, 
overheard, as in this Psalm. Read verses 6-7. And 
in a more au^st agony, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou fors^ij^J^me ? " 

I. CauJ^s of David's despondency. 

II. Tl^B consolation. 

I. ^Causes of David's despondency. 

1. The thirst for God. " My soul thirsteth for God, 
for the living God; when shall I come and appear 
before God?" 

There is a desire in the human heart best described 
as the cravings of infinitude. We are so made that 
nothing which has limits satisfies. 

Hence the sense of freedom and relief which comes 
from all that suggests the idea of boundlessness, — the 
deep sky, the dark night, the endless circle, the illimit- 
able ocean. 

Hence, too, our dissatisfaction with all that is or 
can be done. There never was the beauty yet, than 
which we could not conceive something more beauti- 
ful. None so good as to be faultless in our eyes. No 
deed done by us, but we feel we have it in us to do a 



RELIGIOUS DEPRESSIOX. 143 

better. The heavens are not clean in our sight j and 
the angels are charged with folly. 

Therefore, to never rest is the price paid for our 
greatness. Could we rest, we must become smaller in 
soul. Whoever is satisfied with what he does has 
reached his culminating point — he will progress no 
more. Man's destiny is to be not dissatisfied, but for- 
ever unsatisfied. 

Infinite goodness, — a beauty beyond what eye hath 
seen or heart imagined, a justice which shall liave no 
flaw, and a righteousness which shall have no blemish, 
— to crave for that, is to be " athirst for God." 

2. The temporary loss of the sense olAbd's person- 
ality. " My soul is athirst for the living^Bd." 

Let us search our own experience. W^fc we want 
is, we shall find, not infinitude, but a bound^^ One ; 
not to feel that love is the law of this universefcut to 
feel One whose name is Love. ^ 

For else, if in this world of order there be no A)ne 
in whose bosom that order is centred, and of whose 
Being it is the expression, — in this world of manifold 
contrivance, no Personal Aff'ection which gave to the 
skies their trembling tenderness, and to the snow its 
purity, — then order, affection, contrivance, wisdom, are 
only horrible abstractions, and we are in the dreary 
universe alone. 

Foremost in the declaration of this truth was the 
Jewish religion. It proclaimed not, " Let us medi- 
tate on the Adorable light, it shall guide our intel- 
lects," — which is the most sacred verse of the Hindoo 
Sacred books, — but "Thus saith the Lord, I am that I 
am." In that word, I am, is declared Personality ; and 
it contains, too, in the expression Thus saith, the real 



144 RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 

idea of a Revelation, namely, the voluntary approach 
of the Creator to the creature. 

Accordingly, these Jewish Psalms are remarkable 
for that personal tenderness towards God, — those out- 
bursts of passionate, individual attachment which are 
in every page. A person asking and giving heart for 
heart, — inspiring love, because feeling it, — that was 
the Israelite's Jehovah. 

Now, distinguish this from the God of the philoso- 
pher, and the God of the mere theologian. 

The God of the mere theologian is scarcely a living 
God. He did live ; but for some eighteen hundred 
years we are credibly informed that no trace of His 
life has been seen. The canon is closed. The proofs 
that He was are in the things that He has made, and 
the books of men to whom He spake ; but He inspires 
and works wonders no more. According to the theo- 
logians. He gives us proofs of design instead of God 
— doctrines instead of the life indeed. 

Different, too, from the God of the philosopher. 
The tendency of philosophy has been to throw back 
the personal Being further and still further from the 
time when every branch and stream was believed a 
living Power, to the period when '^ principles " were 
substituted for this belief ; then " Laws ; " and the 
philosopher's God is a law into which all other laws 
are resolvable. 

Quite differently to this speaks the Bible of God. 
Not as a law ; but as the Life of all that is ; the Being 
who feels and is felt, — is loved and loves again ; feels 
my heart throb into His ; counts the hairs of my headj 
feeds the ravens, and clothes the lilies ; hears my 



RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 145 

prayers, and interprets them through a Spirit which 
has affinity with my spirit. 

It is a dark moment when the sense of that person- 
ality is lost ; more terrible than the doubt of immor- 
tality. For, of the two, — eternity without a personal 
God, or God for seventy years without immortality, — 
no one after David's heart would hesitate : " Give me 
God for life, to know and be known by Him." No 
thought is more hideous than that of an eternity with- 
out Him. " My soul is athirst for God." The desire 
of immortality is second to the desire for God. 

3. The taunts of scoffers. " As the hart panteth 
after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 
God." Now, the hart here spoken of is the hart 
hunted, at bay, the big tears rolling from his eyes, 
and the moisture standing black upon his side. Let 
us see what the persecution was. " Where is now thy 
God?" — ver. 3. This is ever the way in religious per- 
plexity : the unsympathizing world taunts or misunder- 
stands. In spiritual grief, they ask. Why is he not like 
others ? In bereavement, they call your deep sorrow 
unbelief In misfortune, they comfort you, like Job's 
friends, by calling it a visitation. Or, like the barbari- 
ans at Melita, when the viper fastened on Paul's hand, 
no doubt they call you an infidel, though your soul be 
crying after God. Specially in that dark and awful 
hour, " Eloi, Eloi," He called on God ; they said, " Let 
be ; let us see whether Elias will come to save Him." 

No\v^, this is sharp to bear. It is easy to say Chris- 
tian fortitude should be superior to it. But in dark- 
ness to have no sympathy — when the soul gropes for 
God, to have the hand of man relax its grasp ? For- 
est-flies, small as they are, drive the noble war-horse 

13 



146 ^ RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 

mad ; therefore, David says, " as a sword in my bones " 
(ver. 10). Now, observe, this feeling of forsakenness 
is no proof of being forsaken. Mourning after an 
absent God is an evidence of love as strong as rejoic- 
ing in a present one. Nay, further, a man may be 
more decisively the servant of God and goodness 
while doubting His existence, and in the anguish of his 
soul crying for light, than while resting in a common 
creed, and coldly serving Him. There has been one, 
at least, whose apparent forsakenness, and whose seem- 
ing doubt, bears the stamp of the majesty of Faith. 
" My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " 

XL David's consolation. 

1. And first, in hope (see ver. 5) ; distinguish 
between the feelings of faith that God is present, and 
the Jiope of faith that He will be so. 

There are times when a dense cloud veils the sun- 
light; you cannot see the sun, nor feel him. Sensitive 
temperaments feel depression, and that unaccountably 
and irresistibly. No effort can make you feel. Then 
you hope. Behind the cloud the sun is ; from thence 
he will come ; the day drags through, the darkest and 
longest night ends at last. Thus we bear the darkness 
and the otherwise intolerable cold, and many a sleep- 
less night. It does not shine now, but it will. So, too, 
spiritually. 

There are hours in which physical derangement 
darkens the windows of the soul ; days in which shat- 
tered nerves make life simply endurance ; months and 
years in which intellectual difficultie^s, pressing for 
solution, shut out God. Then faith must be replaced 
by hope. " What I do thou knowest not now ; but 



RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 147 

thou shalt know hereafter." Clouds and darkness are 
round about Him ; hut Righteousness and Truth are 
the habitation of His throne. ^' My soul, hope thou 
in God ; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health 
of my countenance and my God." 

2. This hope was in God. 

The mistake we make is to look for a source of com- 
fort in ourselves : self-contemplation, instead of gazing 
upon God. In other words, we look for comfort pre- 
cisely where comfort never can be. 

For, first, it is impossible to derive consolation from 
our own feelings, because of their mutability : to-day 
we are well, and our spiritual experience, partaking of 
these circumstances, is bright; but to-morrow some 
outward circumstances change, — the sun does not 
shine, or the wind is chill, — and we are low, gloomy, 
and sad. Then, if our hopes were unreasonably ele- 
vated, they will now be unreasonably depressed ; and 
so our experience becomes flux and reflux, ebb and 
flow, like the sea, that emblem of instability. 

Next, it is impossible to get comfort from our own 
acts ; for, though acts are the test of character, yet in 
a low state no man can judge justly of his own acts. 
They assume a darkness of hue which is reflected on 
them by the eye that contemplates them. It would be 
well for all men to remember that sinners cannot judge 
of sin, — least of all can we estimate our own sin. 

Besides, we lose time in remorse. I have sinned. — 
Well — by the grace of God I must endeavor to do 
better for the future. But if I mourn for it overmuch, 
aU to-day, refusing to be comforted, to-morrow I shall 
have to mourn the wasted to-day ; and that again will 
be the subject of another fit of remorse. 



148 RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION. 

In the wilderness, had the children of Israel, instead 
of gazing on the serpent, looked down on their own 
wounds, to watch the process of the granulation of 
the flesh, and see how deep the wound was, and 
whether it was healing slowly or fast, cure would have 
been impossible: their only chance was to look off the 
wounds. Just so, when, giving up this hopeless and 
sickening work of self inspection, and turning from 
ourselves in Christian self-oblivion, we gaze on God, 
then first the chance of consolation dawns. 

He is not affected by our mutability ; our changes 
do not alter Him. When we are restless. He remains 
serene and calm ; when we are low, selfish, mean, or 
dispirited. He is still the unalterable I AM' — the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever, in whom is no variable- 
ness, neither shadow of turning. What God is in 
Himself — not what we may chance to feel Him in this 
or that moment to be — that is our hope. " My soul, 
hope thou in GodJ^ 



[Preached April 6, 1851.] 

FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 

Watt. viii. 10. — " When Jesus heard it, lie marvelled, and said to them 
that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, 
no, not in Israel." 

That upon which the Sou of God fastened as wor- 
thy of admiration was not the centurion's benevolence, 
nor his perseverance, but his faith. And so speaks 
the whole New Testament, giving a special dignity to 
faith. By faith we are justified. By faith man re- 
moves mountains of difficulty. As the Divinest attri- 
bute in the heart of God is Love, and the mightiest, 
because the most human, principle in the breast of 
man is Faith, Love is heaven. Faith is that which 
appropriates heaven. 

Faith is a theological term, rarely used in other 
matters. Hence its meaning is obscured. But faith 
is no strange, new, peculiar power, supernaturally 
infused by Christianity ; but the same principle by 
which we live from day to day — one of the common- 
est in our daily life. 

We trust our senses ; and that though they often 

deceive us. We trust men ; a battle must often be 

risked on the intelligence of a spy. A merchant com- 
13* (149^ 



150 FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 

mits his ships, with all his fortunes on board, to a hired 
captain, whose temptations are enormous. Without 
this principle society could not hold together for a day. 
It would be a sand-heap. 

Such, too, is religious faith. We trust on probabili- 
ties; and this though probabilities often are against 
us. We cannot prove God's existence. The balance 
of probabilities, scientifically speaking, are nearly 
equal for a living Person or a lifeless Cause ; Immor- 
tality, &c., in the same way. But Faith throws its 
own convictions into the scale, and decides the pre- 
ponderance. 

Faith, then, is that which, when probabilities are 
equal, ventures on God's side and on the side of right, 
on the guarantee of a something within which makes 
the thing seem true because loved. 

So defined by St. Paul: "Faith is the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." The 
hope is the ground. 

I. The faith which was commended. 

II. The causes of the commendation. 

I. The faith which was commended. 

1. Evidence of its existence : his tenderness to his 
servant. 

Of course this good act might have existed separate 
from religion. Romans were benevolent to their do- 
mestics ages before this law had been enacted regu- 
lating the relationship between patron and client. 

But we are forbidden to view it so, when we remem- 
ber that he was a proselyte. Morality is not religion, 
but it is ennobled and made more delicate by religion. 

How ? By instinct you may be kind to dependants. 



FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 151 

But, if it be only by instinct, it is but the same kind 
of tenderness you show to your hound or horse. Dis- 
behef in God, and Right, and Immortality, degrades 
the man you are kind to, to the level of the beast you 
feel for. Both are mortal, and for both your kindness 
is finite and poor. 

But the moment Faith comes, dealing as it does with 
things infinite, it throws something of its own infini- 
tude on the persons loved by the man of faith, upon 
his afiections and his acts, — it raises them. 

Consequently you find the centurion ^^ building Syn- 
agogues," " caring for our (that is, the Jewish) nation," 
as the Repository of the Truth, — tending his ser- 
vants. And this last, observe, approximated his moral 
goodness to the Christian standard ; for therein does 
Christianity differ from mere religiousness, that it is 
not a worship of the high, but a lifting up of the low, 
— not hero-worship, but Divine condescension. 

Thus, then, was his kindliness an evidence of his 
faith. 

2. His humility : " Lord, I am not worthy that Thou 
shouldest come under my roof." 

Now, Christ does not call this humility, though it 
was humility. He says, I have not found so great 
faith. Let us see why. How is humbleness the result 
of, or rather identical with. Faith ? 

Faith is trust. Trust is dependence on another, — • 
the spirit which is opposite to independence, or trust 
in self. Hence, where the spirit of proud independ- 
ence is, faith is not. 

Now, observe how this difiers from our ordinary and 
modern modes of thinking. The first thing taught a 
young man is that he must be independent. Quite 



152 FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 

right, in the Christian sense of the word, to owe no 
man anything; to resolve to get his own Hving, and 
not be beholden to charity, which fosters idleness ; to 
depend on his own exertions, and not on patronage or 
connection. But what is commonly meant by inde- 
pendence is to rejoice at being bound by no ties to 
other human beings ; to owe no allegiance to any will 
except our own ; to be isolated and unconnected by 
any feeling of intercommunion or dependence ; a spirit 
whose very life is jealousy and suspicion; which in 
politics is revolutionism, and in religion atheism. This 
is the opposite of Christianity, and the opposite of the 
Christian freedom whose name it usurps. For true 
freedom is to be emancipated from all false lords, in 
order to owe allegiance to all true lords ; to be free 
from the slavery of all lusts, so as voluntarily to serve 
God and Right. Faith alone frees. 

And this was the freedom of the Centurion — that 
he chose his master. He was not fawning on the Em- 
peror at Rome ; nor courting the immoral ruler at Caes- 
area, who had titles and places to give away ; but he 
bent in lowliest homage of heart before the Holy One. 
His freedom was the freedom of uncoerced and vol- 
untary dependence, — the freedom and humility of 
Faith. 

3. His belief in an invisible, living will. "Speak 
the word only." Remark how different this is from a 
reliance on the influence of the senses. He asked not 
the presence of Christ, but simply an exertion of his 
will. He looked not, like a physician, to the operation 
of unerring laws, or the result of the contact of mat-- 
ter with matter. He believed in Him who is the Life 
indeed. He felt that the Cause of Causes is a Person, 



FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 153 

Hence he could trust the Hving Will out of sight. 
This is the highest form of faith. 

Here, however, I observe : 

The Centurion learned this through his own profes- 
sion. " I am a man under authority, having soldiers 
under me." The argument ran thus : I, by the com- 
mand of will, obtain the obedience of my dependants ; 
the u, by will, the obedience of thine ; sickness and 
health are thy servants. 

Evidently he looked upon this universe with a sol- 
dier's eye ; he could not look otherwise. To him this 
world was a mighty camp of Living Forces in which 
authority was paramount. Trained in obedience to 
military laAv, accustomed to render prompt submission 
to those above him, and to exact it from those below 
him, he read Law everywhere ; and law to him paeant 
nothing, unless it meant the expression of a Personal 
Will. It was this training through which Faith took 
its ybrm. 

The Apostle Paul tells us that the invisible things of 
God from the Creation of the world are clearly seen ; 
and, we may add, from every part of the creation of 
the world, " The heavens declare the glory of God ; " 
but so also does the buttercup and the raindrop. 

The invisible things of God from life are clearly 
seen ; and, we may add, from every department of life. 
There is no profession, no trade, no human occu- 
pation, which does not in its own way educate for 
God. 

The soldier, through Law, read a personal will ; and 
he might, from the same profession, in the unity of an 
army, made a living and organized unity by the vari- 
ety of its parts, have read the principle uf God's and 



154 FAITH OF THE CENTURION. 

the Church's Tinity, through the opportunities that pro- 
fession affords for self-control, for generous deeds. 
When the Gospel was first announced on earth, it was 
proclaimed to the shepherds and Magians in a manner 
appropriate to their modes of life. 

Shepherds, like sailors, are accustomed to hear a 
supernatural Power in the sounds of the air, in the 
moaning of the night-winds, in the sighing of the 
storm ; to see a more than mortal life in the clouds 
that wreathe around the headland. Such men, brought 
up among the sights and sounds of nature, are pro- 
verbially superstitious. No wonder, therefore, that 
the intimation came to them, as it were, on the winds 
in the melodies of the air : ^' a multitude of the heav- 
enly host praising God, and saying. Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward 
men." 

But the Magians, being astrologers, accustomed to 
read the secrets of Life and Death in the clear starlit 
skies of Persia, are conducted by a meteor. 

Each in his own way ; each in his own profession ; 
each through that little -spot of the universe given to 
him. For not only is God everywhere, but all of God 
is in every point. Not His wisdom here, and His good- 
ness there; the whole truth may be read, if we had 
eyes, and heart, and time enough, in the laws of a 
daisy's growth. God's Beauty, His Love, His Unity ; 
nay, if you observe how each atom exists, not for itself 
alone, but for the sake of ever}^ other atom in the uni- 
verse, in that atom or daisy you may read the law of 
the Cross itself The crawling of a beetle before now 
has taught perseverance, and led to a crown. The 
little moss, brought close to a traveller's eye in an 



FAITH OP THE CENTURION. 155 

African desert, who had lain down to die, roused him 
to faith in that Love which had so curiously arranged 
the minute fibres of a thing so small, to be seen once 
and but once by a human eye, and carried him, like 
Elijah of old, in the strength of that heavenly repast, 
a journey of forty days and forty nights to the sources 
of the Nile ; yet who could have suspected divinity in 
a beetle, or theology in a moss ? 

11. The causes of the astonishment. 
The reasons why he marvelled may be reduced un- 
der two heads. 

1. The Centurion was a Gentile; therefore unlikely 
to know revealed truth. 

2. A soldier, and therefore exposed to recklessness, 
and idleness, and sensuality, which are the temptations 
of that profession. But he turned his loss to glorious 
gain. 

The Saviour's comment, therefore, contained the 
advantage of disadvantages, and the disadvantages of 
advantages. The former, " Many shall come from tlie 
east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." The 
latter, " The children of the kingdom shall be cast out 
into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth." 

There are spirits which are crushed by difficulties ; 
others would gain strength from them. The greatest 
men have been those who have cut their way to success 
through difficulties. And such have been the greatest 
triumphs of art and science ; such too of religion. 
Moses, Elijah, Abraham, the Baptist, the giants of both 
Testaments, were not men nurtured in the hothouse of 



156 FAITH OF THE CENTURIOlN. 

religious advantages. Many a man would have done 
good if he had not a superabundance of the means of 
doing it. Many a spiritual giant is buried under moun- 
tains of gold. 

Understand, therefore, the real amount of advantage 
which there is in religious privileges. Necessary, 
especially for the feeble, as crutches are necessary ; 
but, like crutches, they often enfeeble the strong. For 
every advantage which facilitates performance and 
supersedes toil, a corresponding price is paid in loss. 
Civilization gives us telescopes and microscopes ; but 
it takes away the unerring acuteness with which the 
savage reads the track of man and beast upon the 
ground at his feet ; it gives us scientific surgery, and 
impairs the health which made surgery superfluous. 

So, ask you where the place of religious might is^ 
Not the place of religious privileges, — not where 
prayers are daily, and sacraments monthly, — not 
where sermons are so abundant as to pall upon the 
pampered taste ; but on the hill-side with the Cove- 
nanter ; in the wilderness with John the Baptist ; in 
our own dependencies where the liturgy is rarely 
heard, and Christian friends meet at the end of months ; 
there, amidst manifold disadvantages, when the soul is 
thrown upon itself, a few kindred spirits, and God, 
grow up those heroes of faith, like the Centurion, 
whose firm conviction wins admiration even from the 
Son of God Himself 

Lastly, See how this incident testifies to the perfect 
Humanity of Christ. The Saviour " marvelled ; '' that 
wonder was no fictitious semblance of admiration. 
It was real genuine wonder. He had not expected to 
find such faith. The Son of God increased in wisdom 



FAITH OF THE CEXTURIOX. 157 

as well as stature. He knew more at thirty than at 
twenty. There were things He knew at twenty Avhich 
He had not known before. In the last year of His life, 
He went to the fig-tree expecting to find fruit, and was 
disappointed. In all matters of Eternal truth — prin- 
ciples, which are not measured by more or less true — 
His knowledge was absolute ; but it would seem that 
in matters of earthly fact, which are modified by time 
and space. His knowledge was like ours, more or less 
dependent upon experience. 

Now, we forget this, — we are shocked at the thought 
of the partial ignorance of Christ, as if it were irrev- 
erence to think it ; we shrink from believing that He 
really felt the force of temptation, or that the For- 
sakenness on the Cross and the momentary doubt have 
parallels in our human life. In other words, we make 
that Divine Life a mere mimic representation of griefs 
that were not real, and surprises that were feigned, 
and sorrows that were theatrical. 

But thus we lose the Saviour. For it is well to 
know that He was Divine ; still, if we lose that truth, 
we should still have a God in heaven. But if there 
has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no 
Love that never cooled, no Faith that never failed, 
which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of 
our experience, a Light to light amidst ^11 convictions 
of our own meanness and all suspicions of others' little- 
ness, — why, we may have a Religion, but we have not 
a Christianity. For, if we lose Him as a Brother, we 
cannot feel Him as a Saviour. 
14 



XI. 

[Preached July 27, 1851.] 

THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

Gal. vi. 1, 2. — " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which 
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; consid- 
ering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 

It would be a blessed thing for our Christian 
society if we could contemplate sin from the same 
point of view from which Christ and His apostles 
saw it. But in this matter society is ever oscillat- 
ing between two extremes — undue laxity and undue 
severity. 

In one age of the Church, — the days of Donatism, 
for instance, — men refuse the grace of repentance to 
those who have erred; holding that baptismal privi- 
leges once forfeited cannot be got back — that for a 
single distinct lapse there is no restoration. 

In another age, the Church, having found out its 
error, and discovered the danger of setting up an 
impossible standard, begins to confer periodical absolu- 
tions and plenary indulgences, until sin, easily forgiven, 
is as easily committed. 

And so too with societies and legislatures. In one 
period puritanism is dominant, and morals severe. 

(158) 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 159 

There are no small faults. The statute-book is defiled 
with the red mark of blood, set opposite innumerable 
misdemeanors. In an age still earlier, the destruc- 
tion of a wild animal is punished like the murder 
of a man. Then, in another period, we have such a 
medley of sentiments and sickliness that we have lost 
all our bearings, and cannot tell what is vice and what 
is goodness. Charity and toleration degenerate into 
that feeble dreaminess which refuses to be roused by 
stern views of life. 

This contrast, too, may exist in the same age, 
nay, in the same individual. One man gifted with 
talent, or privileged by rank, outrages all decency : 
the world smiles, calls it eccentricity, forgives, and 
is very merciful and tolerant. Then, some one, un- 
shielded by these advantages, indorsed neither by 
wealth nor birth, sins, — not to one-tenth, nor one ten- 
thousandth part of the same extent : society is seized 
with a virtuous indignation — rises up in wrath — 
asks what is to become of the morals of the com- 
munity if these things are committed; and protects 
its proprietors by a rigorous exclusion of the offender, 
cutting off the bridge behind him against his return 
forever. 

Now, the Divine Character of the New Testament, 
is shown in nothing more signally than in the stable 
ground from which it views this matter, in compari- 
son with the shifting and uncertain standing-point 
from whence the world sees it. It says, never retract- 
ing nor bating, " The wages of sin is death.'' It 
speaks sternly, with no weak sentiment, " Go and sin 
no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee." But, 
then, it accepts every excuse, admits every palliation ; 



160 THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

looks upon this world of temptation and these frail 
human hearts of ours, not from the cell of a monk, or 
the study of a recluse, but in a large, real WEij ; accepts 
the existence of sin as a fact, without affecting to be 
shocked or startled ; assumes that it must needs be 
that offences come, and deals with them in a large, 
noble way, as the results of a disease which must be 
met, should be cured, and can. 

I. The Christian view of other men's sins. 

II. The Christian power of restoration. 

I. The first thing noticeable in the apostle's view of 
sin is, that he looks upon it as if it might be sometimes 
the result of a surprise — " If a man be overtaken in 
a fault." In the original, anticipated, taken suddenly 
in front. As if circumstances had been beforehand 
with the man ; as if sin, supposed to be left far behind, 
had on a sudden got in frolit, tripped him up, or led 
him into ambush. 

All sins are not of this character. There are some 
which are in accordance with the general bent of our 
disposition ; and the opportunity of committing them 
was only the first occasion for manifesting what was 
in the heart ; so that, if they had not been committed 
then, they probably would or must have been at some 
other time, and looking back to them .we have no right 
to lay the blame on circumstances, — we are to accept 
the penalty as a severe warning meant to show what 
was in our hearts. 

There are other sins, of a different character. It 
seems as if it were not in us to commit them. They 
were, so to speak, unnatural to us. You were going 
quietly on your way, thinking no evil : suddenly tempt- 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 161 

ation, for which you were not prepared, presented 
itself, and, before you knew where you were, you were 
in the dust, fallen. 

As, for instance, when a question is suddenly put to 
a man which never ought to have been put, touching 
a secret of his own or another's. Had he the pres- 
ence of mind or adroitness, he might turn it aside, oi 
refuse to reply. But, being unprepared and accosted 
suddenly, he says hastily that which is irreconcilable 
with strict truth ; then, to substantiate and make it 
look probable, misrepresents or invents something else ; 
and so he has woven round himself a mesh which will 
entangle his conscience through many a weary day and 
many a sleepless night. 

It is shocking, doubtless, to allow ourselves even to 
admit that this is possible ; yet no one knowing human 
nature from men, and not from books, will deny that 
this might befall even a brave and true man. St. Peter 
was both ; yet this was his history. In a crowd, sud- 
denly, the question was put directly. — ''This man also 
was with Jesus of Nazareth." Then a prevarication — 
a lie ; and yet another. This was a sin of surprise. He 
was overtaken in a fault. 

Every one of us admits the truth of this in his own 
case. Looking back to past life, he feels that the 
errors which have most terribly determined his des- 
tiny were the result of mistake. Inexperience, a hasty 
promise, excess of trust, incaution, nay, even a gener- 
ous devotion, have been fearfully, and, as it seems 
to us, inadequately chastised. There may be some 
undue tenderness to ourselves when we thus palliate 
the past ; still, a great part of such extenuation is only 

justice. 

14* 



162 THE RESTORATION OP THE ERRINa. 

Now the Bible simply requires that we should 
judge others by the same rule by which we judge 
ourselves. The law of Christ demands that what we 
J lead in our own case, we should admit in the case of 
others. Believe that in this or that case, which you 
judge so harshly, the heart in its deeps did not con- 
sent to sin, nor by preference love what is hateful ; 
simply admit , that such an one may have been over- 
taken in aTault. This is the large law of Charity. 

1. Again, the apostle considers fault as that which 
has left a burden on the erring spirit. " Bear ye one 
another's burdens.'' 

For we cannot say to the laws of God, I was over- 
taken. We live under stern and unrelenting laws, 
which permit no excuse and never hear of a surprise. 
They never send a man who has failed once back to 
try a second'chance. There is no room for a mistake. 
You play against them for your life, and they exact 
the penalty inexorably: "Every man must bear his 
own burden." Every law has its own appropriate 
penalty ; and the wonder of it is that often the sever- 
est penalty seems set against the smallest transgres- 
sion ; we suffer more for our vices than our crimes; 
we pay dearer for our imprudences than even for our 
deliberate wickedness. 

Let us examine this a little more closely. One bur- 
den laid on fault is that chain of entanglement which 
seems to drag down to fresh sins. One step necessi- 
tates many others. One fault leads to another, and 
crime to crime. The soul gravitates downward 
beneath its burden. It was profound knowledge 
indeed which prophetically refused to limit Peter's 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 163 

sin to once. " Verily I say unto thee .... thou shalt 
deny Me thrice." 

We will try to describe that sense of burden. A 
fault has the power sometimes of distorting life till all 
seems hideous and unnatural. A man who has left his 
proper nature, and seems compelled to say and do 
things unnatural and in false shoAV, who has thus 
become untrue to himself, — to him life and the whole 
universe becomes untrue. He can grasp nothing, he 
does not stand on fact, — he is living as in a dream, — 
himself a dream. All is ghastly, unreal, spectral. A 
burden is on him as of a nightmare. He moves about 
in nothingness and shadows as if he were not. His 
own existence swiftly passing might seem a phantom 
life, were it not for the corroding pang of anguish in 
his soul ; for that, at least, is real ! 

2. Add to this, the burden of the heart weighing on 
itself. 

It has been truly said that the human heart is like 
the millstone, which, if there be wheat beneath it, will 
grind to purposes of health ; if not, will grind still, at 
the will of the wild wind, but on itself. So does the 
heart wear out itself against its own thought. One 
fixed idea, — one remembrance, and no other, — one 
stationary, wearing anguish. This is remorse, passing 
into despair; itself the goad to fresh and wilder 
crimes. 

The worst of such a burden is, that it keeps down 
the soul from good. 

Many an ethereal spirit, which might have climbed 
the heights of holiness, and breathed the rare and 
difficult air of the mountain-top, where the heavenliest 
spirituality alone can live, is weighed down by such 



164 THE RESTORATION OP THE ERRING. 

a burden to the level of the lowest. If you knoiv 
such an one, mark his history, — without restoration, 
his career is done. That soul will not grow hence- 
forth. 

3. The burden of a secret. 

Some here know the weight of an uncommunicated 
sin. They know how it lies like ice upon the heart. 
They know how dreadful a thing the sense of hypoc- 
risy is ; the knowledge of inward depravity, while all 
without looks pure as snow to men. 

How heavy this weight may be, we gather from 
these indications. First, from this strange psychologi- 
cal fact : A man with a guilty secret will tell out the 
tale of his crimes as under the personality of another ; 
a mysterious necessity seems to force him to give it 
utterance. As in the old fable of him who breathed 
out his weighty secret to the reeds : a remarkable 
instance of this is afforded in the case of that mur- 
derer, who, from the richness of his gifts and the 
enormity of his crime, is almost a historical personage, 
who, having become a teacher of youth, was in the 
habit of narrating to his pupils the anecdote of his 
crime, with all the circumstantial particularity of fact ; 
but, all the while, under the guise of a pretended 
dream. Such men tread forever on the very verge 
of a confession ; they seem to take a fearful pleasure 
in talking of the guilt, — as if the heart could not bear 
its own burden, but must give it outness. 

Again, it is evidenced by the attempt to get relief 
in profuse and general acknowledgments of guilt. 
They adopt the language of religion ; they call them- 
selves vile dust and miserable sinners. The world 
takes generally what they mean particularly. But 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 165 

they get no relief — they only deceive themselves ; for 
they have turned the truth itself into a falsehood, 
using true words which they know convey a false im- 
pression, and getting praise for humility instead of 
punishment for guilt. They have used all the effort, 
and suffered all the pang, which it would have cost 
them tc got real relief; and they have not got it, and 
the burden unacknowledged remains a burden still. 

The third indication we have of the heaviness of 
this burden is the commonness of the longing for con- 
fession. None but a minister of the Gospel can esti- 
mate this ; he only, who, looking round his congrega- 
tion, can point to person after person whose wild tale 
of guilt or sorrow he is cognizant of; who can remem- 
ber how often similar griefs were trembling upon lips 
which did not unburden themselves; whose heart, 
being the receptacle of the anguish of many, can 
judge what is in human hearts; — he alone pan estimate 
how much there is of sin and crime lying with the 
weight and agony of concealment on the spirits of our 
brethren. 

Burden 4. — An intuitive consciousness of the hid- 
(len sins of others' hearts. 

To two states of soul it is given to detect the pres- 
ence of evil; states the opposite of each other — 
innocence and guilt. 

It was predicted of the Saviour while yet a child, 
that by Him the thoughts of many hearts should be 
revealed. The fulfilment of this was the history of his 
life. He went through the world, by His innate 
purity, detecting the presence of evil, as He detected 
the touch of her who touched His garment in the 
crowd. 



166 THE EESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

Men, supposed spotless before, fell down before Him^ 
crying, '^ Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 
Lord ! " This in a lower degree is true all innocence. 
You would think that one who can deeply read the 
human heart and track its windings must be him- 
self deeply experienced in evil. But it is not so ; at 
least, not always. Purity can detect the presence of 
the evil which it does not understand, just as the dove, 
which has never seen a hawk, trembles at its pres- 
ence ; and just as a horse rears uneasily when the wild 
beast unknown and new is near, so innocence under- 
stands, yet understands not the meaning of the unholy 
look, the guilty tone, the sinful manner. It shudders 
and shrinks from it, by a power given to it like that 
which God has conferred on the unreasoning mimosa. 
Sin gives the same power ; but differently. Innocence 
apprehends the approach of evil, by the instinctive tact 
of contrast; guilt, by the instinctive consciousness 
of similarity. It is the profound truth contained in 
the history of the Fall. The eyes are opened ; the 
knowledge of good and evil has come. The soul 
knows its own nakedness ; but it knows also the naked- 
ness of all other souls which have sinned after the 
similitude of its own sin. 

Very marvellous is that test-power of guilt ; it is vain 
1o think of eluding its fine capacity of penetration. 
Intimations of evil are perceived and noted, when to 
other eyes all seems pure. The dropping of an eye, 
the shunning of a subject, the tremulousness of a 
tone, the peculiarity of a subterfuge, will tell the 
tale. These are tendencies like mine, and there is a 
spirit conscious as my own is conscious. 

This dreadful burden the Scriptures call the knowl- 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 167 

edge of good and evil. Can we not all remember the 
salient sense of happiness which we had when all 
was innocent — when crime was the tale of some far 
distant hemisphere, and the guilt we heard of was not 
suspected in the hearts of the beings around us ? And 
can we not recollect, too, how by our own sin, or the 
cognizance of others' sin, there came a something 
which hung the heavens with shame and guilt, and 
all around seemed laden with evil ? This is the worst 
burden that comes from transgression : loss of faith in 
human goodness ; the being sentenced to go through 
life haunted with a presence from which we cannot 
escape ; the presence of Evil in the hearts of all that 
we approach. 

II. The Christian power of restoration : " Ye which 
are spiritual, restore such an one." 

First, then, restoration is possible. That is a Chris- 
tian fact. Moralists have taught us what sin is ; they 
have explained how it twines itself into habit; they 
have shown us its ineffaceable character. It was 
reserved for Christianity to speak of restoration. 
Christ, and Christ only, has revealed that he who has 
erred may be restored, and made pure and clean and 
whole again. 

Next, however, observe that this restoration is ac- 
complished by men. Causatively, of course, and im- 
mediately, restoration is the work of Christ and of 
God the Spirit. Mediately and instrumentally, it is 
the work of men. " Brethren^ .... restore such an 
one.'*' Cod has given to man the power of elevating 
his brother-man. He has conferred on His Church 
the power of the keys to bind and loose. " Whoseso- 



168 THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

ever sins ye remit, they are remitted ; and whosesoever 
sins ye retain, they are retained." It is, therefore, in 
the power of man, by his conduct, to restore his 
brother, or to hinder his restoration. He may loose 
him from his sins, or retain their power upon his 
soul. 

Now, the words of the text confine us to two modes 
in which this is done : by sympathy, and by forgive- 
ness. " Bear ye one another's burdens." 

1. Sympathy. We Protestants have one unvarying 
sneer ready for the system of the Romish confessional. 
They confess, we say, for the sake of absolution, that 
absolved they may sin again. A shallow, superficial 
sneer, as all sneers are. In that craving of the heart 
which gives the system of the Confessional its dan- 
gerous power, there is something far more profound 
than any sneer can fathom. It is not the desire to 
sin again that makes men long to unburden their 
consciences ; but it is the yearning to be true, which 
lies at the bottom even of the most depraved hearts, 
— to appear what they are, and to lead a false life no 
longer ; and, besides, the desire of sympathy. For 
this comes out of that dreadful sense of loneliness 
which is the result of sinning : the heart severed from 
God feels severed from aU other hearts ; goes alone, 
as if it had neither part nor lot with other men, itself 
a shadow among shadows. And its craving is for sym- 
pathy ; it wants some human heart to know what it 
feels. Thousands upon thousands of laden hearts 
around us are crying, Come and bear my burden with 
me ; and observe here, the apostle says, " Bear ye one 
another^s burdens." Nor let the priest bear the bur- 
dens of all : that were most unjust. Why should the 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 169 

priest's heart be the common receptacle of all the 
crimes and wickedness of a congregation ? " Bear ye 
one another^s burdens." 

2. By forgivingness. There is a truth in the doc- 
trine of absolution. God has given to man the power 
to absolve his brother, and so restore him to Himself. 
The forgiveness of man is an echo and an earnest of 
God's forgiveness. He whom society has restored 
realizes the possibility of restoration to God's favor. 
Even the mercifulness of one good man sounds like a 
voice of pardon from heaven ; just as the power and 
the exclusion of men sound like a knell of hopeless- 
ness, and do actually bind the sin upon the soul. The 
man whom society will not forgive nor restore is 
driven into recklessness. This is the true Christian 
doctrine of absolution, as expounded by the Apostle 
Paul, 2 Cor. ii. 7-10. The degrading power of sever- 
ity, the restoring power of pardon, vested in the Chris- 
tian community, the voice of the minister being but 
the voice of them. 

Now, then, let us inquire into the Christianity of our 
society. Restoration is the essential work of Chris- 
tianity. The Gospel is the declaration of God's sym- 
pathy and God's pardon. In these two particulars, 
then, what is our right to be called a Christian com- 
munity ? 

Suppose that a man is overtaken in a fault. What 
does he or what shall he do ? Shall he retain it un- 
acknowledged, and go through life a false man ? God 
forbid ! Shall he then acknowledge it to his brethren, 
that they by sympathy and merciful caution may re- 
store him? Well, but is it not certain that it is ex- 
actly from those to whom the name of brethren most 

15 



170 THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 

peculiarly belongs that he will not receive assistance ? 
Can a man in mental doubt go to the members of the 
same religious communion, or does he not know that 
they precisely are the ones who will frown upon his 
doubts, and proclaim his sins? Or, will a clergyman 
unburden his mind to his brethren in the ministry? 
Are they not, in their official rigor, the least capable 
of largely understanding him? If a woman be over- 
taken in a fault, will she tell it to a sister-woman ? Or, 
does she not feel, instinctively, that her sister-woman 
is ever the most harsh, the most severe, and the most 
ferocious judge ? 

Well, you sneer at the confessional; you complain 
that mistaken ministers of the Church of England are 
restoring it amongst us. But who are they that are 
forcing on the confessional? Who drive laden and 
broken hearts to pour out their long pent-up sorrows 
into any ear that will receive them ? I say it is we : 
we, by our un charitableness ; we, by our want of sym- 
pathy and unmerciful behavior; we, by the unchris- 
tian way in which we break down the bridge behind 
the penitent, and say. On, on in sin, — there is no 
returning. 

Finally, the apostle tells the spirit in which this is to 
be done, and assigns a motive for the doing it. The 
mode is " in the spirit of meekness." For Satan can- 
not cast out Satan ; sin cannot drive out sin. For 
instance, my anger cannot drive out another man's 
covetousness ; my petulance or sneer cannot expel 
another's extravagance. The meekness of Christ alone 
has power. The charity which desires another's good- 
ness above his well-being — that alone succeeds in the 
work of restoration. 



THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING. 171 

The motive is, ^^ considering thyself, lest thou also 
be tempted." For sin is the result of inclination, or 
weakness, combined with opportunity. It is, there- 
fore, in a degree, the offspring of circumstances. Go 
to the hulks, the jail, the penitentiary, the penal col- 
ony, — statistics will almost mark out for you before- 
hand the classes which have furnished the inmates, 
and the exact proportion of the delinquency of each 
class. You will not find the wealthy there, nor the 
noble, nor those guarded by the fences of social life ; 
but the poor, and the uneducated, and the frail, and the 
defenceless. Can you gravely surmise that this reg- 
ular tabulation depends upon the superior virtue of 
one class, compared with others ? Or, must you admit 
that the majority, at least, of those who have not fallen^ 
are safe because they were not tempted ? Well, then, 
when St. Paul says, " considering thyself, lest thou 
also be tempted," it is as if he had written : Proud 
Pharisee of a man, complacent in thine integrity, who 
thankest God that thou art not as other men are, ex- 
tortioners, unjust, &c., hast thou gone through the 
terrible ordeal, and come off with unscathed virtue ? 
Or, art thou in all these points simply untried ? Proud 
Pharisee of a woman, who passest by an erring sister 
with a haughty look of conscious superiority, dost 
thou know what temptation is, with strong feeling and 
mastering- opportunity? Shall the rich-cut crystal 
which stands on the table of the wealthy man, pro- 
tected from dust and injury, boast that it has escaped 
the flaws, and the cracks, and the fractures, which the 
earthen jar has sustained, exposed and subjected to 
rough and general uses ? man or woman ! thou 
who wouldst be a Pharisee, consider, 0, " consider thy 
self, lest thou also be tempted." 



XII. 

[Preached Christmas Day, 1851.] 

CHRIST THE SON. 

Heb. i. 1. — *' God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spako 
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son." 

Two critical remarks. 

1. " Sundry times, " — more literally, sundry por- 
tions, sections — not of time, but of the matter of the 
revelation. God gave His revelation in parts, piece- 
meal, as you teach a child to spell a word, — letter by 
letter, syllable by syllable, — adding all at last together. 
God had a Word to spell — His own Name. By degrees 
He did it. At last it came entire. The Word was 
made Flesh. 

2. " His Son, " — more correctly, " a Son " — for this 
is the very argument. Not that God now spoke by 
Christ, but that, whereas once by prophets, now by a 
Son. The filial dispensation was the last. 

This epistle was addressed to Christians on the 
verge of apostasy. See those passages : '*' It is impos- 
sible for those who were once enlightened, and have 
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers 
of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of 
God, and the powers of the world to come, if they 

shdU fall away, to renew them again unto repentance j 

(172) 



CHRIST THE SON. 173 

seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God 
afresh, and put Him to an open shame." — " Cast not 
away your confidence." — " We are made partakers of 
Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence 
steadfast unto the end." 

Observe what the danger was. Christianity had 
disappointed them, — they had not found in it the rest 
they anticipated. They looked back to the Judaism 
they had left, and saw a splendid temple-service, a 
line of priests, a visible temple witnessing of God's 
presence, a religion which was unquestionably fer- 
tile in prophets and martyrs. They saw these preten- 
sions, and wavered. 

But this was all on the eve of dissolution. The Jew- 
ish earth and heavens — that is, the Jewish Common- 
wealth and Church — were doomed, and about to pass 
away. The writer of this epistle felt that their hour 
was come, — see chap, xii.' 26, 27, — and if their re- 
ligion rested on nothing better than this, he knew that 
in the crash religion itself would go. To return to 
Judaism was to go down to atheism and despair. 

Reason alleged — they had contented themselves 
wnth a superficial view of Christianity ; they had not 
seen how it was interwoven with all their own history, 
and how it alone explained that history. 

Therefore in this epistle the writer labors to show 
that Christianity was the fulfilment of the Idea latent 
in Judaism ; that from the earliest times, and in every 
institution, it was implied. In the monarchy, in 
prophets, in sabbath-days, in psalms, in the priest- 
hood, and in temple-services, Christianity lay con- 
cealed ; and the dispensation of a Son was the realiza- 
tion of what else was shadows. He, therefore, alone. 

15* 



174 CHRIST THE SON. 

who adhered to Christ, was the true Jew, and to apos- 
tatize from Christianity was really to apostatize from 
true Judaism. 

I am to show^, then, that the manifestation of God 
through a Son was implied, not realized, in the earlier 
dispensation. 

" Sundry portions " of this Truth are instanced in 
the epistle. The mediatorial dispensation of Moses — 
the gift of Canaan — the Sabbath, &c. At present I 
select these : 

I. The preparatory Dispensation. 

II. The filial and final Dispensation. 

I. Implied, not fulfilled, in the kingly office. Three 
Psalms are quoted, all referring to kingship. In Psalm 
2d, it was plain that the true idea of a king was only 
fulfilled in one who was a Son of Cod. The Jewish 
king was king only so far as he held from God ; as His 
image, the representative of the Fountain of Law and 
Majesty. 

" To Him God hath said, Thou art my Son, this 
day have I begotten Thee." 

The 45th Psalm is a bridal hymn, composed on the 
marriage of a Jewish king. . Startling language is 
addressed to him. He is called God, Lord. — " Thy 
throne, God, is for ever and ever." The bride is 
invited to worship him as it were a God : — " He is thy 
Lord, and worship thou him." No one is surprised at 
this who remembers that Moses was said to be made a 
God to Aaron. Yet it is startling, almost blasphemous, 
unless there be a deeper meaning implied — the divine 
character of the real king. 

In the 110th Psalm a new idea is added. The true 



CHRIST THE SON. 175 

king must be a priest. — " Thou art a priest forever, 
after the order of Melchizedek." This was addressed 
to the Jewish king ; but it implied that the ideal king, 
of which he was for the time the representative, more 
or less truly, is one who at the same time sustains the 
highest religious character and the highest executive 
authority. 

Again, David was emphatically the type of the 
Jewish regal idea. David is scarcely a personage, so 
entirely does he pass in Jewish forms of thought into 
an ideal Sovereign, — " the sure mercies of David.'' 
David is the name therefore for the David which was 
to be. Now, David was a wanderer, kingly still, ruling 
men and gaining adherents by force of inward royalty. 
Thus in the Jewish mind the kingly office disengaged 
itself from outward pomp and hereditary right, as mere 
accidents, and became a personal reality. The king 
was an idea. 

Further still. The epistle extends this idea to man. 
The psalm had ascribed (Ps. viii. 6) kingly qualities and 
rulie to manhood — rule over the creation. Thus the 
idea of a king belonged properly to humanity ; to the 
Jewish king, as the representative of humanity. 

Yet even in collective humanity the royal character 
is not realized. — " We see not," says the epistle, " all 
things as yet put under him" — man. 

Collect, then, these notions. The true king of men 
is a Son of God ; one who is to his fellow-men God 
and Lord, as the Jewish bride was to feel her royal 
husband to be to her ; one who is a priest ; one who 
may be poor and exiled, yet not less royal. 

Say, then, whence is this idea fulfilled by Judaism ? 
To which of the Jewish kings can it be applied, except 



176 CHKIST THE SON. 

with infinite exaggeration ? To David ? Why, the 
Redeemer shows the insuperable difficulty of this. — 
" How, then, doth David in spirit call him," — that is, 
the king of whom he was writing, — " Lord, saying. The 
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 
until I make thy enemies thy footstool ? " 

David, writing of himself, yet speaks there in the 
third person, projecting himself outward as an object 
of contemplation, an idea. 

Is it fulfilled in the human race ? — " We see not 
yet all things put under him." Then the writer goes 
on : — " But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower 
than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with 
glory and honor ; that He by the grace of God should 
taste death for every man." In Jesus of Nazareth 
alone all these fragments, these sundry portions of the 
revealed Idea of Royalty, met. 

II. Christianity was implied in the race of prophets. 

The second class of quotations refer to the prophets' 
life and history. (Heb. ii. 11-14.) Psalm xxii. 22 ; 
Psalm xviii. 2 ; Isaiah xii. 2 ; Isaiah viii. 18. 

Remember what the prophets were. They were not 
merely predictors of the future. Nothing destroys 
the true conception of the prophets' office more than 
those popular books in which their mission is certified 
by curious coincidences. For example, if it is pre- 
dicted that Babylon shall be a desolation, the haunt 
of wild beasts, &c., then some traveller has seen a lion 
standing on Birs Nimroud ; or, if the fisherman is to 
dry his nets on Tyre, simply expressing its destruction 
thereby, the commentator is not easy till he finds that 
a net has been actually seen drying on a rock. But 



CHRIST THE SON. 177 

this is to degrade the prophetic office to a level with 
Egyptian palmistry ; to make the prophet like an 
astrologer, or a gypsy fortune-teller, — one who can 
predict destinies and draw horoscopes. But, in truth, 
the first office of the prophet was with the present. 
He read Eternal Principles beneath the present and 
the transitory ; and in doing this, of course, he proph 
esied the future — for a principle true to-day is true for- 
ever. But this was, so to speak, an accident of his 
office — not its essential feature. If, for instance, he 
read in the voluptuousness of Babylon the secret of 
Babylon's decay, he also read by anticipation the 
doom of Corinth, London, all- cities in Babylon's state ; 
or, if Jerusalem's fall was predicted, in it all such judg- 
ment-comings were foreseen ; and the language is true 
of the fall of the world, as truly, or more so, than 
that of Jerusalem. A philosopher saying in the pres- 
ent tense the law by which comets move, predicts all 
possible cometary movements. 

Now, the prophet's life almost more than his words 
was predictive. The writer of the epistle lays down 
a great principle respecting the prophet (ii. 11): — 
" Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified 
'^^e all of one." It was the very condition of his inspi- 
ration that he should be one with the people. So far 
from making him superhuman, it made him more man. 
He felt with more exquisite sensitiveness all that be- 
longs to man, else he could not have been a prophet. 
His insight into things was the result of that very 
weakness, sensitiveness, and susceptibility, so trem- 
blingly alive. He burned with their thoughts, and 
expressed them. He was obliged by the very sensi- 
tiveness of his humanity to have a more entire 



178 CHRIST THE SON. 

dependence and a more perfect sympathy than other 
men. The sanctifying prophet was one with those 
whom he sanctified. Hence he uses those expressions 
quoted from Isaiah and the Psalms above. 

He was more man, just because more divine, -— 
more a son of man, because more a Son of God. He 
was peculiarly the sufi'ering Israelite ; his counte- 
nance marred more than the sons of men. Hence, we 
are told the prophets searched " what, or what manner 
of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings 
of Christ, and the glory that should follow." (1 Peter 

i-ll-) 

Observe, it was a spirit in them, their own lives wit- 
nessing mysteriously of what the Perfect Humanity 
must be suffering. 

Thus, especially, Isaiah liii., spoken originally of the 
Jewish nation ; of the prophet as peculiarly the Israel- 
ite ; no wonder the eunuch asked Philip, in perplexity, 
" Of whom doth the prophet say this ? — of himself, or 
some other man?" The truth is, he said it of himself, 
but prophetically of humanity ; true of him, most true 
of the Highest Humanity. 

Here, then, was a new " portion " of the revelation. 
The prophet rebuked the king, often opposed the 
priest, but was one with the people. " He that sanc- 
tifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." 

If, then, One had come claiming to be the Prophet 
of the Race, and was a Sufferer, claiming to be the Son 
of God, and yet peculiarly man ; the son of man ; the 
son of man just because the Son of God; more Divine 
because more human; — then this was only what the 
whole race of Jewish prophets should have prepared 



CHRIST THE SON. 179 

them for. God had spoken by the prophets. That 
God had now spoken by a Son in whom the idea of 
the True prophet was realized in its entireness. 

III. The Priesthood continued this idea latent. The 
writer saw three elements in the priestly idea. 1. That 
he should be ordained for men in things pertaining to 
God. 2. That he should offer gifts and sacrifices. 
3. That he should be called by God, not be a mere self- 
assertor. 

1. Ordained for men. Remark here the true idea 
contained in Judaism, and its difference from the 
Heathen notions. In Heathenism the priest was of a 
different Race ; separate from his fellows. In Judaism 
he was ordained for men ; their representative ; con- 
stituted in their behalf. The Jewish priest represented 
the holiness of the nation ; he went into the holy of 
holies, showing it. But this great idea was only im- 
plied, not fulfilled, in the Jewish priest. He was only 
by a fiction the representative of holiness. Holy he 
was not. He only entered into a fictitious holy of 
holies. If the idea were to be ever real, it must be in 
One who should be actually what the Jewish priest 
was by a figment, and who should carry out humanity 
into the real Holy of Holies, — the presence of God ; 
thus becoming our invisible and Eternal Priest. 

Next, it was implied that his call must be Divine. 
But (in the 110th Psalm) a higher call is intimated 
than that Divine call which was made to the Aaronic 
priesthood by a regular succession, or, as it is called 
in the epistle, " the law of a carnal commandment." 
Melchizedeck's call is spoken of. The king is called a 
priest after his order. Not a derived or hereditary 



180 CHRIST THE SON. 

priesthood ; not one transmissible, beginning and end- 
ing in himself, — Heb. vii. 1 to 3. A priesthood, in 
other words, of character, of imvard right ; a call in- 
ternal, hence more Divine ; or, as the writer calls it, a 
priest "after the power of an endless life." This was 
the Idea for which the Jewish psalms themselves ought 
to have prepared the Jew. 

2. Again, the priests offered gifts and sacrifices. 
Distinguish. Gifts were thank-offerings ; first-fruits of 
harvest, vintage, &c., a man's best ; testimonials of in- 
finite gratefulness, and expressions of it. But sacrifices 
were different : they implied a sense of unworthiness j 
that sense which conflicts with the idea of any right to 
offer gifts. 

Now, the Jewish Scriptures themselves had ex- 
plained this subject, and this instinctive feeling of 
unworthiness for which sacrifice found an expression. 
Prophets and Psalmists had felt that no sacrifice was 
perfect which did not reach the conscience (Ps. li. 16, 
17), for instance; also, Heb. x. 8 to 12. No language 
could more clearly show that the spiritual Jew discerned 
that entire surrender to the Divine Will is the only per- 
fect Sacrifice, the ground of all sacrifices, and that 
which alone imparts to it a significance. Not sacrifice 

" Then said I, Lo, I come to do Thy will, God." 

That is the sacrifice which God wills. 

I say it firmly — all other notions of sacrifice are 
false. Whatsoever introduces the conception of vin- 
dictiveness or retaliation ; whatever speaks of appeas- 
ing inry ; whatever estimates the value of the Saviour's 
sacrifice by the " penalty paid ; " whatever differs from 
these notions' of sacrifice contained in psalms and 



CHRIST THE SON. 181 

prophets, — is borrowed from the bloody shambles of 
Heathenism, and not from Jewish altars. 

3. This alone makes the worshipper perfect as per- 
taining to the conscience. He who can offer it in its 
entireness. He alone is the world's Atonement; He in 
whose heart the Law was, and who alone of all man- 
kind was content to do it, His Sacrifice alone can be 
the Sacrifice all-sufficient in the Father's sight as the 
proper Sacrifice of humanity; He who through the 
Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, He 
alone can give the Spirit which enables us to present 
our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to 
God. 

He is the only High Priest of the Universe. 
16 



XIII. 

[Preached April 25, 1852.] 

WORLDLINESS. 

1 John ii. 15-17. — "If any mau love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is 
of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but 
he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 

Religion dilBfers from morality in the value which it 
places on the affections. Morality requires that an act 
be done on principle. Keligion goes deeper, and 
inquires the state of the heart. The Church of Ephe- 
sus was unsuspected in her orthodoxy, and unblem- 
ished in her zeal ; but to the ear of him who saw the 
apocalyptic vision, a voice spake, " I have somewhat 
against thee, in that thou hast left thy first love." 

In the eye of Christianity he is a Christian who 
loves the Father. He who loves the world may be in 
his way a good man, respecting whose eternal destiny 
we pronounce no opinion ; but one of the Children of 
the Kingdom he is not. 

Now, the boundary-lines of the love of this world, 
or worldliness, are exceedingly difficult to define. 
Bigotry pronounces many things wrong which are 
harmless ; laxity permits many which are by no means 

(182) 



WORLDLINESS. 188 

innocent ; and it is a question perpetually put, a ques- 
tion miserably perplexing to those whose religion 
consists more in avoiding that which is wrong than 
in seeking that which is right, — what is Worldli- 
ness? 

To that question we desire to find to-day an answer 
in the text ; premising this, that our object is to put 
ourselves in possession of principles. For otherwise 
we shall only deal with this matter as empirics ; con- 
demning this and approving that by opinion, but on 
no certain and intelligible ground ; we shall but float 
on the unstable sea of opinion. 

We confine ourselves to two points. 

I. The nature of the forbidden world. 

II. The reasons for which it is forbidden. 

I. The nature of the forbidden world. 

The first idea suggested by " the world " is this 
green earth, with its days and nights, its seasons, its 
hills and its valleys, its clouds and brightness. This is 
not the world the love of which is prohibited ; for, to 
forbid the love of this would be to forbid the love of 
God. 

There are three ways in which we learn to know 
Him. First, by the working of our minds. Love, Jus- 
tice, Tenderness — if w^e would know what they mean 
in God, we must gain the conception from their exist- 
ence in ourselves. But, inasmuch as humanity is 
imperfect in us, if we were to learn of God only from 
His image in ourselves, we should run the risk of 
calling the evil good, and the imperfect divine. There- 
fore, He has given us, besides this, the representation 
of Himself in Christ, where is found the meeting-point 



184 WORLDLINESS. 

of the Divine and the human, and in whose Life the 
character of Deity is reflected as completely- as the 
sun is seen in the depth of the still, untroubled lake. 

But there is a third way, still, in which we attain the 
idea of God. This world is but manifested Deity, — 
God shown to the eye, and ear, and sense. This strange 
phenomenon of a world, — what is it? All we know of 
it — all we know of matter — is, that it is an assem- 
blage of Powers which produce in us certain sensations; 
but what those Powers are in themselves we know 
not. The sensation of color, form, weight, we have ; 
but what it is which gives those sensations, — in the 
language of the schools, what is the Substratum which 
supports the accidents or qualities of Being, — we 
cannot tell. Speculative Philosophy replies. It is but 
our own selves becoming conscious of themselves. 
We, in our own being, are the cause of all phe- 
nomena. Positive Philosophy replies, What the Being 
of the world is we cannot tell ; we only know what it 
seems to us. Phenomena — appearance — beyond this 
we cannot reach. Being itself is, and forever must 
be, unknowable. Religion replies. That something is 
God. The world is but manifested Deity. That 
which lies beneath the surface of all Appearance, the 
cause of all Manifestation, is God. So that to f(»rbid 
the love of all this world, is to forbid the love of that 
by which God is known to us. The sounds and sights 
of this lovely world are but the drapery of the robe 
in which the Invisible has clothed Himself. Does a 
man ask what this world is, and why man is placed in 
it ? It was that the invisible things of Him from the 
creation of the world might be clearly seen. Have we 
ever stood beneath the solemn vault of heaven, when 



WORLDLINESS. 185 

the stars were looking down in their silent splendor, 
and not felt an overpowering sense of His eternity ? 
When the white lightning has quivered in the sky, has 
that told us nothing of Power, or only something of 
electricity ? Rocks and mountains, are they here to 
give us the idea of material massiveness, or to reveal 
the conception of the Strength of Israel ? When we 
take up the page of past history, and read that wrong 
never prospered long, but that nations have drunk, one 
after another, the cup of terrible retribution, can we 
dismiss all that as the philosophy of history, or shall 
we say, that through blood, and war, and desolation, 
we trace the footsteps of a presiding God, and find 
evidence that there sits at the helm of this world's 
affairs a strict, and rigorous, and most terrible justice? 
To the eye that can see, to the heart that is not 
paralyzed, God is here. The warnings which the 
Bible utters against the things of this world bring no 
charge against the glorious world itself. The world 
is the glass through which we see the Maker. But 
what men do is this : they put the dull quicksilver of 
their own selfishness behind the glass, and so it be- 
comes not the transparent medium through which God 
shines, but the dead opaque which reflects back them- 
selves. Instead of lying with open eye and heart to 
receive, we project ourselves upon the world and give. 
So it gives us back our own false feelings and nature. 
Therefore it brings forth thorns and thistles. There- 
fore it grows weeds, — weeds to us. Therefore the 
lightning burns with wrath, and the thunder mutters 
vengeance. By all which it comes to pass that the 
very Manifestation of God has transformed itself, — 
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the 

16* 



186 WORLDLINESS. 

pride of life ; and all that is in the world is no longer 
of the Father, but is of tHe world. 

By the world, again, is sometimes meant the men 
that are in the world. And thus the command would 
run, — Love not men, but love God. It has been so 
read. The Pharisees read it so, of old. The property 
which natural affection demanded for the support of 
parents, upon that they wrote " Corban," — a gift for 
God, — and robbed men that they might give to God. 
Yet no less than this is done whenever human affec- 
tion is called idolatry. As if God were jealous of our 
love, in the human sense of jealousy. As if we could 
love God the more by loving man the less. As if it 
were not by loving our brother, whom we have seen, 
that we approximate towards the love of God, whom 
we have not seen. This is but the cloak for narrow- 
ness of heart. Men of withered affections excuse their 
lovelessness by talking largely of the affection due to 
God. Yet, like the Pharisees, the love on which Cor- 
ban is written is never given to God, but really 
retained for self. 

No, let a man love his neighbor as himself Let him 
love his brother, sister, wife, with all the intensity of 
his heart's affection. This is not St. John's forbidden 
world. 

Again. By the world is often understood the worldly 
occupation, trade, or profession, which a man exercises. 
And, accordingly, it is no uncommon thing to hear this 
spoken of as something which, if not actually anti-reli- 
gious, is, so far as it goes, time taken away from the 
religious life. But when the man from whom the 
legion had been expelled asked Jesus for the precepts 
of a religious existence, the reply sent him back to 



WORLDLINESS. 187 

home. His former worldliness had consisted in doing 
his worldly duties ill, — his future religiousness was to 
consist in doing those same duties better. A man's 
profession or trade is not only not imcompatible with 
religion (provided it be a lawful one) — it is his reli- 
gion. And this is true even of those callings which, 
at first sight, appear to have in them something hard 
to reconcile with religiousness. For instance, the pro- 
fession of a lawyer. He is a worldling in it if he use 
it for some personal greed, or degrade it by chicanery. 
But, in itself, it is an occupation which sifts right from 
wrong; which, in the entangled web of human life, 
unwinds the meshes of error. He is by profession en- 
listed on the side of the Right, — directly connected 
with God, the central point of Justice and Truth. A 
nobler occupation need no man desire than to be a fel- 
low-worker with God. Or, take the soldier's trade, — 
in this world generally a trade of blood, and revenge, 
and idle licentiousness. Rightly understood, what is 
it? A soldier's whole Hfe, whether he will or not, is 
an enunciation of the greatest of religious truths, — 
the voluntary sacrifice of one for the sake of many. 
In the detail of his existence, how abundant are the 
opportunities for the voluntary recognition of this, 
— opportunities such as that when the three strong 
men brake through the lines of the enemy to obtain 
the water for their sovereign's thirst ; opportunities as 
when that same heroic sovereign poured the untasted 
water on the ground, and refused to drink because it 
was his soldiers' lives — he could not drink at such a 
price. Earnestness in a lawful calling is not worldli- 
aess. A profession is the sphere of our activity. 
There is something sacred in work. To work in the 



188 WORLDLINESS. 

appointed sphere is to be religious, — as religious as 
to pray. This is not the forbidden world. 

NoWj to define what worldliness is. Eemark, first, 
that it is determined by the spirit of a life, not the ob- 
jects with which the life is conversant. It is not the 
"" flesh," nor the " eye," nor " life," which are forbidden, 
but it is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, 
and the pride of life. It is not this earth, nor the men 
who inhabit it, nor the sphere of our legitimate activ- 
ity, that we may not love ; but the way in which the 
love is given which constitutes worldliness. Look 
into this a little closer — the lust of the flesh. Here 
is affection for the outward: Pleasure, that which 
affects the senses only ; the flesh, that enjoyment 
which comes from the emotions of an hour, be it 
coarse or be it refined, the pleasure of wine or the 
pleasure of music, so far as it is only a movement of 
the flesh. Again, the lust of the eye. Here is affec- 
tion for the transient; for the eye can only gaze on 
form and color, and these are things that do not last. 

Once more : the pride of life. Here is affection for 
the unreal. Men's opinion, — the estimate which de- 
pends upon wealth, rank, circumstances. Worldliness, 
then, consists in these three things : Attachment to the 
Outward, attachment to the Transitory, attachment to 
the Unreal ; in opposition to love for the Inward, the 
Eternal, the True ; and the one of these affections is 
necessarily expelled by the other. " If any man love 
the world, the love of the Father is not in him." But 
Jot a man once feel the power of the kingdom that is 
within, and then the love fades of that emotion whose 
life consists only in the thrill of a nerve, or the vivid 
sensation of a feeling; he loses his happiness, and wins 



WORLDLINESS. 189 

his blessedness. Let a man get but one glimpse of 
the King in his beauty, and then the forms and shapes 
of things here are but the types of an invisible loveli- 
ness — types which he is content should break and 
fade. Let but a man feel truth, — that goodness is 
greatness — that there is no other greatness, — and 
then the degrading reverence with which the titled of 
this world bow before wealth, and the ostentation with 
which the rich of this world profess their familiarity 
with title — all the pride of life, what is it to him? The 
love of the Inward, — Everlasting, Real, — the love, 
that is, of the Father, — annihilates the love of the world. 

11. We pass to the reasons for which the love of the 
world is forbidden. 

The first reason assigned is, that the love of the 
world is incompatible with the love of God. " If any 
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in 
him." Now, what we observe in this is, that St. John 
takes it for granted that we must love something. 
If not the love of the Father, then of necessity the 
love of the world. Love misplaced, or love rightly 
placed, — you have your choice between these two; 
y^ou have not your choice between loving God or 
nothing. No man is sufficient for himself Every 
man must go out of himself for enjoyment. Some- 
thing in this universe besides himself there must be 
to bind the affections of every man. There is that 
within us which compels us to attach ourselves to 
something outward. The choice is not this, — Love, 
or be without love. You cannot give the pent-up 
steam its choice of moving or not moving. It must 
move one way or the other; the right way or tho 



190 WORLDLINESS. 

wrong way. Direct it rightly, and its energy rolls 
the engine-wheels smoothly on their track ; block up 
its passage, and it bounds away, a thing of madness 
and ruin. Stop it, you cannot ; it will rather burst. 
So it is with our hearts. There is a pent-up energy 
of love, gigantic for good or evil. Its right way is in 
the direction of our Eternal Father ; and then, let it 
boil and pant as it will, the course of the man is 
smooth. Expel the love of God from the bosom, — 
what then ? Will the passion that is within cease 
to burn? Nay. Tie the man down, — let there be 
no outlet for his affections, — let him attach himself 
to nothing, and become a loveless spirit in this 
universe, — and then there is what we call a broken 
heart ; the steam bursts the machinery that contains 
it. Or else, let him take his course, unfettered and 
free, and then we have the riot of worldliness, — ^ a 
man with strong affections thrown off the line, tear- 
ing himself to pieces, and carrying desolation along 
with him. Let us comprehend our own nature, our- 
selves, and our destinies. God is our Eest, the only 
One that can quench the fever of our desire. God in 
Christ is what we want. When men quit that, so 
that "the love of the Father is not in them," then 
they must perforce turn aside ; the nobler heart to 
break with disappointment, ■ — the meaner heart to 
love the world instead, and sate and satisfy itself 
as best it may on things that perish in the using. 
Herein lies the secret of our being, in this world of 
the affections. This explains why our noblest feel- 
ings lie so close to our basest, — why the noblest so 
easily metamorphose themselves into the basest, The 



WORLDLINESS. 191 

heart which was made large enough for God wastes 
itself upon the world. 

The second reason which the apostle gives for not 
squandering affection on the world is its transitori- 
ness. Now, this transitoriness exists in two shapes. 
It is transitory in itself, — the world passeth away. It 
is transitory in its power of exciting desire, — the lust 
thereof passeth away. 

It is a twice-told tale, that the world is passing 
away from us, and there is very little new to be said 
on the subject. God has written it on every page of 
His creation, that there is nothing here which lasts. 
Our affections change. The friendships of the man 
are not the friendships of the boy. Our very selves 
are altering. The basis of our being may remain, 
but our views, tastes, feelings, are no more our 
former self than the oak is the acorn. The very 
face of the visible world is altering around us ; we 
have the gray mouldering ruins to tell of what was 
once. Our laborers strike their ploughshares against 
the foundations of buildings which once echoed to 
human mirth, — skeletons of men, to whom life once 
was dear, — urns and coins that remind the antiqua- 
rian of a magnificent empire. To-day the shot of 
the enemy defaces and blackens monuments and 
venerable temples, which remind the Christian that 
into the deep silence of eternity the Roman world, 
which was in its vigor in the days of John, has 
passed away. And so things are going. It is a 
work of weaving and unweaving. All passes. Names 
that the world heard once in thunder are scarcely 
heard at the end of centuries ; — good or bad, they 
pass. A few years ago, and we were not. A few 



192 WORLDLINESS. 

centuries further, and we reacli the age of beings of 
almost another race. Jj^imrod was the conqueror and 
scourge of his far-back age. Tubal Cain gave to the 
world the iron which was the foundation of every 
triumph of men over nature. We have their names 
now. But the philologist is uncertain whether the 
name of the first is real or mythical ; and the 
traveller excavates the sand-mounds of Nineveh to 
wonder over the records which he cannot decipher. 
Tyrant; and benefactor, both are gone. And so all 
things are moving on to the last fire, which, shall 
wrap the world in conflagration, and make all that 
has been the recollection of a dream. This is the 
history of the world, and all that is in it. It passes 
while we look at it. Like as when you watch the 
melting tints of the evening sky, — purple-crimson, 
gorgeous gold, a few pulsations of quivering light, 
and it is all gone, — we are such stuff as dreams are 
made of. 

The other aspect of this transitoriness is, that the 
lust of the world passeth away. By which the apostle 
seems to remind us of that solemn truth that, fast as 
the world is fleeting from us, faster still does the taste 
for its enjoyments fleet; fast as the brilliancy fades 
from earthly things, faster still does the eye become 
wearied of straining itself upon them. 

Now, there is one way in which this takes place, by 
a man becoming satiated with the world. There is 
something in earthly rapture which cloys. And when 
we drink deep of pleasure, there is left behind some- 
thing of that loathing which follows a repast on 
sweets. When a boy sets out in life, it is all fresh, — 
freshness in feeling, zest in his enjoyment, purity in 



WORLDLINESS. 193 

his heart. Cherish that, my young brethren, while 
you can ; — lose it, and it never comes again. It is not 
an easy thing to cherish it, for it demands restraint in 
pleasure, and no young heart loves that. Religion 
has only calm, sober, perhaps monotonous pleasures, 
to offer at first. The deep rapture of enjoyment 
comes in after-life. And that will not satisfy the 
young heart. Men will know what pleasure is, and 
they drink deep. Keen delight, feverish enjoyment 
— that is what you long for ; and these emotions lose 
their delicacy and their relish, and will only come at 
the bidding of gross excitements. The ecstasy which 
once rose to the sight of the rainbow in the sky, or 
the bright brook, or the fresh morning, comes lan- 
guidly at last only in the crowded midnight room, or 
the excitement of commercial speculation, or beside 
the gambling-table, or amidst the fever of politics. 
It is a spectacle for men and angels, when a man has 
become old in feeling, and worn-out before his time. 
Know we none such among our own acquaintance ? 
Have the young never seen those aged ones who 
stand amongst them in their pleasures, almost as if to 
warn them of what they themselves must come to, at 
last? Have they never marked the dull and sated 
look that they cast upon the whole scene, as upon a 
thing which they would fain enjoy and cannot? Know 
you what you have been looking on ? A sated world- 
ling, — one to whom pleasure was rapture once, as it 
is to you now. Thirty years more, that look and that 
place will be yours ; and that is the way the world 
rewards its veterans : it chains them to it after the 
" lust of the world " has passed away. 

Or, this may be done by a discovery of the unsatis- 
17 



194 WORLDLINESS. 

factoriness of the world. That is a discovery not 
made by every man. But there are some, at least, who 
have learned it bitterly, and that without the aid of 
Christ. Some there are who would not live over this 
past life again, even if were possible. Some there are 
who would gladly have done with the whole thing at 
once, and exchange — 0, how joyfully ! — the garment 
for the shroud. And some there are who cling to life, 
not because life is dear, but because the future is dark, 
and they tremble somewhat at the thought of entering 
it. Clinging to life is no proof that a man is still long- 
ing for the world. We often cling to life the more 
tenaciously as years go on. The deeper the tree has 
struck its roots into the ground, the less willing is it 
to be rooted up. But there is many a one who so 
hangs on just because he has not the desperate hardi- 
hood to quit it, nor faith enough to be " willing to de- 
part." The world and he have understood each other. 
He has seen through it. He has ceased to hope any- 
thing from it. The love of the Father is not in him ; 
but " the lust of the world " has passed away. 

Lastly. A reason for unlearning the love of the 
world is the solitary permanence of Christian action 
In contrast with the fleetingness of this world, the 
apostle tells us of the stability of labor. " He that 
doeth the will of God abideth forever." And let us 
mark this. Christian life is action ; not a speculating, 
not a debating, but a doing. One thing, and only 
one, in the world, has eternity stamped upon it. Feel- 
ings pass; resolves and thoughts pass ; opinions change. 
What you have done lasts — lasts in you. Through 
ages, through eternity, what you have done for Christ, 
that, and only that, you are. " They rest from theii 



WORLDLINESS. 195 

labors," saith the Spirit, " and their works do follow 
them." If the love of the Father be in us, where is 
the thing done which we have to show ? You think 
justly, feel rightly — yes, but your work. Produce it. 
Men of wealth, men of talent, men of leisure, What are 
you doing in God's world for God ? 

Observe, however, to distinguish between the act 
and the actor: it is not the thing done, but the 
Doer, who lasts. The thing done often is a failure. 
The cup given in the name of Christ may be given to 
one unworthy of it ; but think ye that the love with 
which it was given has passed away? Has it not 
printed itself indelibly in the character, by the very 
act of giving ? Bless, and if the Son of peace be there, 
your act succeeds ; but if not, your blessing shall re- 
turn unto you again. In other words, the act may fail, 
but the doer of it abideth forever. 

We close this subject with two practical truths. 

First of all, let us learn from earthly changefulness 
a lesson of cheerful activity. The world has its way 
of looking at all this, — but it is not the Christian's 
way. There has been nothing said to-day that a worldly 
moralist has not already said a thousand times far bet- 
ter. The fact is a world-fact. The application is a 
Christian one. Every man can be eloquent about the 
nothingness of time. 

But the application ! Let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we die ? That is one application. Let us sen- 
timentalize and be sad in this fleeting world, and talk 
of the instability of human greatness, and the transi- 
toriness of human affection ? Those are the only two 
applications the world knows. They shut out the rec- 
ollection, and are merry ; or, they dwell on it, and are 



196 WORLDLINESS. 

sad. Christian brethren, dwell on it, and be happy. 
This world is not yours : thank God it is not. It is 
dropping away from you like worn-out autumn leaves ; 
bat beneath it, hidden in it, there is another world 
lying as the flower lies in the bud. That is your world, 
which must burst forth at last into eternal luxuriance. 
All you stand on, see, and love, is but the husk of some- 
thing better. Things are passing ; our friends are drop- 
ping off from us ; strength is giving way ; our relish 
for earth is going ; and the world no longer wears to 
our hearts the radiance that once it wore. We have 
the same sky above us, and the same scenes around 
us ; but the freshness that our hearts extracted from 
everything in boyhood, and the glory that seemed to 
rest once on earth and life, have faded away forever. 
Sad and gloomy truths to the man who is going down to 
the grave with his work undone. Not sad to the Chris- 
tian ; but rousing, exciting, invigorating. If it be the 
eleventh hour, we have no time for folding of the 
hands ; we wiU work the faster. Through the change- 
fulness of life ; through the solemn tolling of the bell 
of Time, which tells us that another, and another, and 
another, are gone before us ; through the noiseless rush 
of a world which is going down with gigantic footsteps 
into nothingness. Let not the Christian slack his hand 
from work; for he that doeth the will of God may defy 
hell itself to quench his immortality. 

Finally, The love of this world is only unlearned 
by the love of the Father. It were a desolate thing, 
indeed, to forbid the love of earth, if there were noth- 
ing to fill the vacant space in the heart. But it is just 
for this purpose, that a sublimer affection may find 
room, that the lower is to be expelled. And there is 



WORLDLINESS. 197 

only one way in which that higher love is learned. The 
cross of Christ is the measure of the love of God to 
us, and the measure of the meaning of man's exist- 
ence. The measure of the love of God. — Through the 
death-knell of a passing universe, God seems at least 
to speak to us in wrath. There is no doubt of what 
God means in the cross. He means love. The meas- 
ure of the meaning of man's existence. — Measure all 
by the cross. Do you want success ? The cross is fail- 
ure. Do you want a name? The cross is infamy. Is it 
to be gay and happy that you live ? The cross is pain 
and sharpness. Do you live that the will of God may 
be done, in you and by you, in life and death ? Then, 
and only then, the spirit of the cross is in you. When 
once a man has learned that, the power of the world is 
gone ; and no man need bid him, in denunciation or in 
invitation, not to love the world. He cannot love the 
world: for he has got an ambition above the world. 
He has planted his foot upon a Rock, and when all else 
is gone, he at least abides forever. 
17* 



XIV. 

[Preached November 14,1852.] 

THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE RELIGIOUS NON- 
OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

Rom. xiv. 5^ 6 — " One man esteemeth one day above another; another 
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; 
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard 
it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; 
and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God 
thanks." 

The selection of tliis text is suggested by one of 
the current topics of the day. Lately, projects have 
been devised, one of which in importance surpasses 
all the rest, for providing places of public recreation 
for the people ; and it has been announced, with the 
sanction of government, that such a place will be held 
open during a part, at least, of the day of rest. By a 
large section of sincerely religious persons this an- 
nouncement has been received with considerable 
alarm and strenuous opposition. It has seemed to 
them that such a desecration would be a national 
crime ; for, holding the Sabbaths to be God's signs 
between Himself and His people, they cannot but 
view the desecration of the sign as a forfeiture of His 
covenant, and an act which will assuredly call down 

(198) 



THE SYDENHAM PALACE, ETC. 199 

national judgments. By the secular press, on the con- 
trary, this proposal has been defended with consider- 
able power. It has been maintained that the Sabbath 
is a Jewish institution — in its strictness, at all events, 
not binding on a Christian community. It has been 
urged with much force that we cannot consistently 
refuse to concede to the poor man publicly, that right 
of recreation which privately the rich man has long 
taken without rebuke, and with no protest on the part 
of the ministers of Christ. And it has been said that 
such places of recreation will tend to humanize — 
which, if not identical with Christianizing the popula- 
tion, is at least a step towards it. 

Upon such a subject, where truth unquestionably 
does not lie upon the surface, it cannot be out of place 
if a minister of Christ endeavors to direct the minds 
of his congregation towards the formation of an 
opinion ; not dogmatically, but humbly remembering 
always that his own temptation is, from his very posi- 
tion, as a clergyman, to view such matters not so 
much in the broad light of the possibilities of actual 
life, as with the eyes of a recluse — from a clerical 
and ecclesiastical, rather than from a large and human 
point of view. For no minister of Christ has a right 
to speak oracularly. All that he can pretend to do is 
to give his judgment, as one that has obtained mercy 
of the Lord to be faithful. And, on large national 
subjects, there is perhaps no class so ill qualified to 
form a judgment with breadth, as we, the clergy of 
the Church of England, accustomed as we are to move 
m the narrow circle of those who listen to us with 
forbearance and deference, and mixing but little in 
real life, till, in our cloistered and inviolable sanctu- 



200 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 

aries, we are apt to forget that it is one thing to lay 
down rules for a religious clique, and another to legis- 
late for a great nation. 

In the Church of Rome, a controversy had arisen, 
in the time of St. Paul, respecting the exact relation 
in Avhich Christianity stood to Judaism; and conse- 
quently the obligation of various Jewish institutions 
came to be discussed : among the rest, the Sabbath- 
day. One party maintained its abrogation ; another, 
its continued obligation. " One man esteemeth one 
day above another; another esteemeth every day 
alike." Now, it is remarkable that, in his reply, the 
Apostle Paul, although his own views upon the ques- 
tion were decided and strong, passes no judgment of 
censure upon the practice of either of these parties, 
but only blames the uncharitable spirit in which the 
one "judged their brethren," as irreligious, and the 
other " set at naught " their stricter brethren, as su- 
perstitious. He lays down, however, two principles 
for the decision of the matter : the first being the 
rights of Christian conviction, or the sacredness of 
the individual conscience — " Let every man be fully 
persuaded in his own mind ; " the second, a principle 
unsatisfactory enough, and surprising, no doubt, to 
both — that there is such a thing as a religious observ- 
ance, and also such a thing as a religious non-observ- 
ance of the day — " He that regardeth the day, regard- 
eth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the 
day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." 

I shall consider, 

I. St. PauPs own view upon the question. 

II. His modifications of that view, in reference to 
separate cases. 



EELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 201 

I. St. PauPs own view. 

No one, I believe, who would read St. Paul's own 
writings, with unprejudiced mind, could fail to come 
to the conclusion that he considered the Sabbath abro- 
gated by Christianity. Not merely modified in its 
stringency, but totally repealed. 

For example, see Col. ii. 16, 17 : observe, he counts 
the Sabbath-day among those institutions of Judaism 
which were shadows, and of which Christ was the 
realization — the substance, or " body ; " and he bids 
the Colossians remain indifferent to the judgment 
which would be pronounced upon their non-observance 
of such days. " Let no man judge you w^ith respect 
to ... . the Sabbath-days." 

More decisively still, in the text. For it has been 
contended that in the former passage " Sabbath-days " 
refers simply to the Jewish Sabbaths, which were su- 
perseded by the Lord's day ; and that the apostle does 
not allude at all to the new institution, which it is sup- 
posed had superseded it. Here, however, there can 
be no such ambiguity. " One man esteemeth every 
day alike ; " and he only says. Let him be fully per- 
suaded in his own mind. '' Every " day must include 
first days as well as last days of the week — Sundays 
as well as Saturdays. 

And again, he even speaks of scrupulous adherence 
to particular days, as if it were giving up the very 
principle of Christianity : " Ye observe days, and 
months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, 
lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." So that 
his objection was not to Jewish days, but to the very 
principle of attaching intrinsic sacredness to any days. 
All forms and modes of particularizing the Christian 



202 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 



life he reckoned as bondage under the elements or 
alphabet of the law. And this is plain from the na- 
ture of the case. He struck not at a day, but at a 
principle. Else, if, with all this vehemence and ear- 
nestness, he only meant to establish a new set of days 
in the place of the old, there is no intelligible principle 
for which he is contending, and that earnest apostle 
is only a champion for one day instead of another, — 
an assertor of the eternal sanctities of Sunday, in 
stead of the eternal sanctities of Saturday. Incredible, 
indeed. 

Let us, then, understand the principle on which he 
declared the repeal of the Sabbath. He taught that 
the blood of Christ cleansed all things ; therefore 
there was nothing specially clean. Christ had vindi- 
cated all for God ; therefore there was no thing more 
God^s than another. For, to assert one thing as God's 
more than another, is, by implication, to admit that 
other to be less God's. 

The blood of Christ had vindicated God's parental 
right to all humanity; therefore there could be no 
peculiar people. ^^ There is neither Jew nor Greek, 
circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, 
bond, nor free ; but Christ is all and in all." It had 
proclaimed God's property in all places; therefore 
there could be no one place intrinsically holier than 
another. No human dedication, no human consecra- 
tion, could localize God in space. Hence, the first 
martyr quoted from the prophet : " Howbeit the Most 
High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as 
saith the prophet. Heaven is my throne, and earth is 
my footstool ; what house wiU ye build for me ? saith 
the Lord." 



RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OP THE SABBATH. 203 

Lastly, the Gospel of Christ had sanctified all time ; 
heDce no time could be specially God's. For, to assert 
that Sunday is more God's day than Monda}^, is to 
maintain by implication Monday is His less rightfully. 

Here, however, let it be observed, it is perfectly 
possible, and not at all inconsistent with this, that for 
human convenience, and even human necessities, just 
as it became desirable to set apart certain places in 
which the noise of earthly business could not be heard 
for spiritual worship, so it should become desirable to 
set apart certain days for special worship. But, then, 
all such were defensible on the ground of wise and 
Christian expediency alone ; they could not be placed 
on the ground of a Divine statute or command ; they 
rested on the authority of the Church of Christ ; and 
the power which had made could unmake them again. 

Accordingly, in early, we cannot say exactly how 
early times, the Church of Christ felt the necessity of 
substituting something in place of the ordinances 
which had been repealed. And the Lord's day arose, 
not a day of compulsory rest — not such a day at all 
as modern Sabbatarians suppose. Not a Jewish sab- 
bath ; rather a day in many respects absolutely con- 
trasted with the Jewish sabbath. 

For the Lord's day sprung, not out of a transference 
of the Jewish sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, but 
rather out of the idea of making the week an imitation 
of the life of Christ. With the early Christians, the 
great conception was that of following their crucified 
and risen Lord ; they set, as it were, the clock of time 
to the epochs of His history. Friday represented the 
Death, in which all Christians daily die; and Sunday the 
Resurrection, in which all Christians daily rise to 



204 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 

higher life. What Friday and Sunday were to the 
week, that Good Friday and Easter Sunday were to 
the year. And thus, in larger or smaller cycles, all 
time represented to the early Christians the mysteries 
of the Cross and the Risen life in hidden humanity. And 
as the sunflower turns from morning till evening to the 
sun, so did the early Church turn forever to her Lord, 
transforming week and year into a symbolical repre- 
sentation of His Spiritual Life. 

Carefully distinguish this, the true historical view 
of the origin of the Lord's day, from a mere transfer- 
ence of a Jewish sabbath from one day to another. 
For St. Paul's teaching is distinct and clear, that the 
Sabbath is annulled ; and to urge the observance of the 
day as indispensable to salvation was, according to him, 
to Judaize — " to turn again to the weak and beggarly 
elements, whereunto they desired to be in bondage." 

II. The modifications of this view. 

The first modification has reference to those who 
conscientiously observed the day. He that observeth 
the day, observeth it to the Lord. Let him act, then, 
on that conviction: "Let him be fully persuaded in 
his own mind." 

There is, therefore, a religious observance of the 
Sabbath-day possible. 

We are bound by the spirit of the fourth command- 
ment, so far as we are in the same spiritual state as 
they to whom it was given. The spiritual intent of 
Christianity is to worship G-od every day in the spirit. 
But, had this law been given in all its purity to the 
Jews, instead of turning every week-day into a sab- 
bath, they would have transformed every sabbath into 



RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 205 

a week-day ; with no special day fixed for worship, 
they would have spent every day without worship. 
Their hearts were too dull for a devotion so spiritual 
and pure. 

Therefore, a law was given, specializing a day, in 
order to lead them to the broader truth that every day 
is God's. 

Now, so far as we are in the Jewish state, the fourth 
commandment, even in its rigor and strictness, is 
wisely used by us ; nay, we might say, indispensable. 
For who is he who needs not the day ? He is the man 
so rich in love, so conformed to the mind of Christ, so 
elevated into the sublime repose of heaven, that he 
needs no carnal ordinances at all, nor the assistance of 
one day in seven to kindle spiritual feelings, seeing he 
is, as it were, all his life in heaven already. 

And, doubtless, such the Apostle Paul expected the 
Church of Christ to be. Anticipating the second 
Advent at once, not knowing the long centuries of 
slow progress that were to come, his heart would have 
sunk within him, could he have been told that at the 
end of eighteen centuries the Christian Church would 
be still observing days, and months, and times, and 
years, — and, still more, needing them. 

Needing them, I say. For the Sabbath was made 
for man. God made it for men in a certain spiritual 
state, because they needed it. The need, therefore, is 
deeply hidden in human nature. He who can dispense 
with it must be holy and spiritual indeed. And he 
who, still unholy and unspiritual, would yet dispense 
with it, is a man who would fain be wiser than his 
Maker. We, Christians as we are, still need the law, 
both in its restraints, and in its aids to our weakness. 

18 



206 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 

No man, therefore, who knows himself, but will 
gladly and joyfully use the institution. No man who 
knows the need of his brethren will wantonly dese- 
crate it, or recklessly hurt even their scruples respect- 
ing its observance. And no such man can look with 
aught but grave and serious apprehensions on such an 
innovation upon English customs of life and thought, 
as the proposal to give public and official countenance 
to a scheme which will invite millions, I do not say ta 
an irreligious, but certainly an unreligious use of the 
day of rest. 

This, then, is the first modification of the broad view 
of a repealed Sabbath. Repealed though it be, there 
is such a thing as a religious observance of it. And, 
provided that those who are stricter than we in their 
views of its obligation observe it not from super- 
stition, nor in abridgment of Christian liberty, nor 
from moroseness, we are bound, in Christian charity, 
to yield them all respect and honor. Let them act out 
their conscientious convictions. Let not him that 
observeth not despise him that observeth. 

The second modification of the broad view is, that 
there is such a thing as a religious non-observance of 
the Sabbath. I lay a stress on the word religious. 
For St. Paul does not say that every non-observance 
of the Sabbath is religious : but that he who, not ob- 
serving it, observeth it not to the Lord, is, because 
acting on conscientious conviction, as acceptable as 
the others, who in obedience to what they believe to 
be His will observe it. 

He pays his non-observance to the Lord, who, feel- 
ing that Christ has made him free, striving to live all 
his days in the Spirit, and knowing that that which is 



RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 207 

displeasing to God is not work nor recreation, but 
selfishness and worldliness, refuses to be bound by a 
Jewish ordinance which forbade labor and recreation 
only with a typical intent. 

But he who, not trying to serve God on any day, 
gives Sunday to toil or pleasure, certainly observes 
not the day ; but his non-observance is not rendered 
to the Lord. He may be free from superstition ; but 
it is not Christ who has made him free. Nor is he 
one of whom St. Paul would have said that his liberty 
on the Sabbath is as acceptable as his brother's con- 
scientious scrupulosity. 

Here, then, we are at issue with the popular de- 
fence of public recreations on the Sabbath-day : not 
so much with respect to the practice, as with respect 
to the grounds on which the practice is approved. 
They claim liberty ; but it is not Christian liberty. 
Like St. Paul, they demand a license for non-observ 
ance ; only, it is not " non-observance to the Lord.'* 
For, distinguish well. The abolition of Judaism is not 
necessarily the establishment of Christianity ; to do 
away with the Sabbath-day in order to substitute a 
nobler, truer, more continuous sabbath, even the sab- 
bath of all time given up to God, is well. But to do 
away the special Rights of God to the Sabbath, in 
order merely to substitute the Rights of Pleasure, or 
the Rights of Mammon, or even the license of profli- 
gacy and drunkenness, — that, methinks, is not Paul's 
'' Christian liberty." 

The second point on which we join issue is the 
assumption that public places of recreation, which 
humanize, will therefore Christianize the people. It 
is taken for granted that architecture, sculpture, and 



208 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 

the wonders of Nature and Art which 'such buildings 
will contain, have a direct or indirect tendency to lead 
to true devotion. 

Only in a very limited degree is there truth in this 
at all. Christianity will humanize ; we are not so 
sure that humanizing will Christianize. Let us be 
clear upon this matter. Esthetics are not Religion. 
It is one thing to civilize and polish ; it is another 
thing to Christianize. The Worship of the Beautiful 
is not the Worship of Holiness ; nay, I know not 
whether the one may not have a tendency to disin- 
cline from the other. 

At least, such was the history of ancient Greece. 
Greece was the home of the Arts, the sacred ground 
on which the worship of the Beautiful was carried to 
its perfection. Let those who have read the history 
of her decline and fall, who have perused the debas- 
ing works of her later years, tell us how music, paint- 
ing, poetry, the arts, softened and debilitated and sen- 
sualized the nation's heart. Let them tell us how, 
when Greece's last and greatest man was warning in 
vain against the foe at her gates, and demanding a 
manlier and a more heroic disposition to sacrifice, that 
most polished and humanized people, sunk in trade 
and sunk in pleasure, were squandering enormous 
sums upon their buildings and their esthetics, their 
processions and their people's palaces, till the flood 
came, and the liberties of Greece were trampled 
down forever beneath the feet of the Macedonian 
conqueror. 

No ! the change of a nation's heart is not to te 
effected by the infusion of a taste for artistic grace. 
" Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, 



RELIGaOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 209 

which is Christ Jesus." Not Art, but the Cross of 
Christ. Simpler manners, purer Hves, more self-de- 
nial, more earnest sympathy with the classes that lie 
below us, — nothing short of that can lay the founda- 
tions of the Christianity which is to be hereafter, deep 
and broad. 

On the other hand, we dissent from the views of 
those who would arrest such a project by petitions to 
the legislature on these grounds. 

1. It is a return backwards to Judaism and Law. 
It may be quite true that, as we suspect, such non- 
observance of the day is not to the Lord, but only a 
scheme of mere pecuniary speculation. Nevertheless, 
there is such a thing as a religious non-observance of 
the day ; and we dare not " judge another man's ser- 
vant ; to his own master he standeth or falleth." We 
dare not assert the perpetual obligation of the Sab- 
bath, when an inspired apostle has declared it abro- 
gated. We dare not refuse a public concession of 
that kind of recreation to the poor man which the 
rich have long not hesitated to take in their sump- 
tuous mansions and pleasure-grounds, unrebuked by 
the ministers of Christ, who seem touched to the 
quick only when the desecration of the Sabbath is 
loud and vulgar. We cannot substitute a statute law 
for a repealed law of God. We may think, and we do, 
that there is much which may lead to dangerous con- 
sequences in this innovation ; but we dare not treat it 
as a crime. 

The second ground on which we are opposed to 
the ultra-rigor of Sabbath observance, especially when 
it becomes coercive, is the danger of injuring the 

conscience. It is wisely taught by St. Paul that he 

18* 



210 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE 

who does anything with offence — that is, with a feeling 
that it is wrong — does wrong. To him it is wrong, 
even though it be not wrong abstractedly. Therefore 
it is always dangerous to multiply restrictions and 
requirements beyond what is essential ; because men, 
feeling themselves hemmed in, break the artificial 
barrier, but, breaking it with a sense of guilt, do 
thereby become hardened in conscience, and prepared 
for transgression against commandments which are 
Divine and of eternal obligation. Hence it is that 
the criminal has so often in his confessions traced 
his deterioration in crime to the first step of breaking 
the Sabbath-day ; and no doubt with accurate truth. 
But what shall we infer from this ? Shall we infer, 
as is so often done upon the platform and in religious 
books, that it proves the everlasting obligation of the 
Sabbath? Or, shall we, with a far truer philosophy 
of the human soul, infer, in the language of St. 
Peter, that we have been laying on him " a yoke 
which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear " ? 
— in the language of St. Paul, that "the motions of 
sin were by the law ; " that the rigorous rule was itself 
the stimulating, moving cause of the sin ; and that 
when the young man, worn out with his week's toil, 
first stole out into the fields to taste the fresh breath 
of a spring-day, he did it with a vague, secret sense 
of transgression ; and that, having, as it were, drawn his 
sword in defiance against the established code of the 
religious world, he felt that from thenceforward there 
was for him no return, and so he became an outcast, 
his sword against every man, and every man's sword 
against him? I believe this to be the true account of 
the matter ; and, believing it, I cannot but believe that 



RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 211 

the false, Jewish notions of the Sabbath-day which are 
prevalent have been exceedingly pernicious to the 
morals of the country. 

Lastly, I remind you of the danger of mistaking a 
" positive " law for a moral one. The danger is, that 
proportionably to the vehemence with which the law 
positive is enforced, the sacredness of moral laws is 
neglected. A positive law, in theological language, is 
a law laid down for special purposes, and corresponds 
with statute laws in things civil. Thus laws of quar- 
antine and laws of exercise depend for their force 
upon the will of the legislature, and when repealed are 
binding no more. But a moral law is one binding for- 
ever ; which a statute law may declare, but can neither 
make nor unmake. 

Now, when men are rigorous in the enforcement and 
reverence paid to laws positive, the tendency is to a 
corresponding indifference to the laws of eternal 
Right. The written supersedes in their hearts the 
moral. The mental history of the ancient Pharisees 
who observed the Sabbath, and tithed mint, anise, and 
cummin, neglecting justice, mercy, and truth, is the 
history of a most dangerous but universal tendency 
of the human heart. And so, many a man, whose 
heart swells with what he thinks pious horror when 
he sees the letter delivered or the train run upon the 
Sabbatli-day, can pass through the streets at night 
undepressed and unshocked by the evidences of the 
Avide-spreading profligacy which has eaten deep into 
his country's heart. And many a man who would 
gaze upon the domes of a crystal palace, rising above 
the trees, with somewhat of the same feeling with 
which he would look on a temple dedicated to Jug- 



212 THE SYDENHAM PALACE, ETC. 

gernaut, and who would fancy that something of the 
spirit of an ancient prophet was burning in his bosom, 
when his Hps pronounced the Woe ! woe ! of a 
coming doom, would sit calmly in a social circle of 
English life, and scarcely feel uneasy in listening to its 
uncharitableness and its slanders ; would hear, without 
one throb of indignation, the common dastardly con- 
demnation of the weak for sins which are venial in the 
strong; would survey the relations of the rich and 
poor in this country, and remain calmly satisfied that 
there is nothing false in them, unbrotherly, and wrong. 
No, my brethren ! let us think clearly and strongly on 
this matter. It may be that God has a controversy 
with this people. It may be, as they say, that our 
Father will chasten us by the sword of the foreigner. 
But, if He does, and if judgments are in store for our 
country, they will fall, not because the correspondence 
of the land is carried on upon the Sabbath day ; nor 
because Sunday trains are not arrested by the legisla- 
ture ; nor because a public permission is given to the 
working-classes for a few hours' recreation on the day 
of rest : but because we are selfish men ; and because 
we prefer Pleasure to Duty, and Traffic to Honor; and 
because we love our party more than our Church, and 
our Church more than our Christianity, and our Chris- 
tianity more than Truth, and ourselves more than all. 
These are the things that defile a nation ; but the labor 
and recreation of its Poor, these are not the things 
that defile a nation. 



XV. 

[Preached January 2, 1853.] 

THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

Luke ii. 40. — "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled 
with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." 

The ecclesiastical year begins with Advent, then 
comes Christmas-day. The first day of the natural 
year begins with the infancy of the Son of Man. To- 
day the Gospel proceeds with the brief account of the 
early years of Jesus. 

The infinite significance of the life of Christ is not 
exhausted by saying that He was a perfect man. The 
notion of the earlier Socinians that He was a pattern 
man (ipilosct-vdQOjTtos), commissioned from Heaven with a 
message to teach men how to live, and supernaturally 
empowered to live in that perfect way Himself, is 
immeasurably short of truth. For perfection merely 
human does not attract — rather it repels. It may be 
copied in form; it cannot be imitated in spirit, — for 
men only imitate that from which enthusiasm and life 
are caught, — for it does not inspire nor fire with love. 

Faultless men and pattern children, — you may 
admire them, but you admire coldly. Praise them as 
you will, no one is better for their example. No one 
blames them, and no one loves them ; they kindle no 

(213) 



214 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

enthusiasm, they create no likenesses of themselves ; 
they never reproduce themselves in other lives, — the 
true prerogative of all original life. 

If Christ had only been a faultless Being, He would 
never have set up in the world a new type of character, 
which at the end of two thousand years is fresh and 
life-giving and inspiring still. He never would have 
regenerated the world. He never would have " drawn 
all men unto Him," by being lifted up a self-sacrifice, 
making self-devotion beautiful. In Christ the Divine 
and Human blended ; Immutability joined itself to 
Mutability. There was in Him the Divine which 
remained fixed ; the Human, which was constantly 
developing. One uniform Idea and Purpose charac- 
terized His whole life, with a Divine immutable unity 
throughout, but it was subject to the laws of human 
growth. For the soul of Christ was not cast down 
upon this world a perfect thing at once. Spotless ? — 
yes. Faultless? — yes. Tempted in all points with- 
out sin ? — yes. But perfection is more than faultless- 
ness. All Scripture coincides in telling us that the 
ripe perfection of His manhood was reached step by 
step. There was a power and a Life within Him which 
were to be developed, which could only be developed, like 
all human strength and goodness, by toil of brain and 
heart. Life up-hill all the way ; and every foot-print 
by which He climbed left behind for us, petrified on 
the hard rock, and indurated into history forever, to 
show us when and where and how He toiled and won. 

Take a few passages to prove that His perfection 
was gained by degrees. *' It became Him for whom 
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 215 

many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salva- 
tion ^e?yec^ through suffering." 

Again, " Behold, I cast out devils, and do cures 
to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be 
perfected.''^ 

'^ Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience." 
And in the context, " Jesus increased.^^ 

Now, see the result of this aspect of His perfecti- 
bility. In that changeless element of His Being which 
beneath all the varying phases of growth remained 
Divinely faultless, we see that which we can adore. 
In the ever-changing, ever-growing, subject therefore 
to feebleness and endearing mutability, we see that 
which brings Him near to us ; makes Him lovable, at 
the same time that it interprets us to ourselves. 

Our subject is the early development of Jesus. In 
this text we read of a three-fold growth. 

I. In strength. 

II. In wisdom. 

III. In grace. 

First, it speaks to us simply of His early develop- 
ment. " The child grew." 

In the case of all rare excellence that is merely 
human, it is the first object of the biographer of a 
marvellous man to seek for surprising stories of his 
early life. The appetite for the marvellous in this 
matter is almost instinctive and invariable. All men, 
almost, love to discover the early wonders which were 
prophetic of after-greatness. Apparently, the reason 
is, that we are unwilling to believe that wondrous ex- 
cellence was attained by slow, patient labor. We get 
an excuse for our own slowness and stunted growth, 



216 THE EAELY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS, 

by settling it, once for all, that the original differences 
between such men and us were immeasurable. There- 
fore it is, I conceive, that we seek so eagerly for anec- 
dotes of early precocity. 

In this spirit the fathers of the primitive church 
collected legends of the early life of Christ, stories of 
superhuman infancy — what the infant and the child 
said and did. Many of these legends are absurd ; all, 
as resting on no authority, are rejected. 

Very different from this is the spirit of the Bible 
narrative. It records no marvellous stories of infantine 
sagacity or miraculous power, to feed a prurient curi- 
osity. Both in what it tells and in what it does not 
tell, one thing is plain, that the human life of the Son 
of God was natural. There was first the blade, then 
the ear, then the full corn. In what it does not say ; 
because, had there been anything preternatural to 
record, no doubt it would have been recorded. In 
what it does say ; because that little is all unaffectedly 
simple. One anecdote, and two verses of general 
description, — that is all which is told us of the Redeem- 
er's childhood. 

The child, it is written, grew. Two pregnant facts. 
He was a child, and a child that giew in heart, in intel- 
lect, in size, in grace, in favor with God. Not a man 
in child's years. No hot-bed precocity marked the 
holiest of infancies. The Son of Man grew up in the 
quiet valley of existence,— in shadow, not in sunshine, 
not forced. No unnatural, stimulating culture had 
developed the mind or feelings ; no public flattery, 
no sunning of infantine perfections in the glare of the 
world's show, had brought the temptation of the wilder- 
ness, with which His manhood grappled, too early on 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 217 

His soul. We know that He was childlike, as other 
children ; for in after-years His brethren thought His 
fame strange, and his townsmen rejected him. They 
could not believe tliat one who had gone in and out, 
ate and drank and worked, was He whose Name is 
"Wonderful. The proverb, true of others, was true of 
Him : " A prophet is not without honor, but in his 
own country, and among his own kin, and in his own 
house." You know him in a picture at once, by the 
halo round his brow. There was no glory in His real 
life to mark Him. He was in the world, and the world 
knew Him not. Gradually and gently He woke to 
consciousness of life and its manifold meaning ,• found 
Himself in possession of a self; by degrees opened 
His eyes upon this outer world, and drank in its beauty. 
Early He felt the lily of the field discourse to Him of 
y the Invisible Loveliness, and the ravens tell of God 
His Father. Gradually, and not at once. He embraced 
the sphere of human duties, and woke to His earthly 
relationships one by one — the Son, the Brother, the 
Citizen, the Master. 

It is a very deep and beautiful and precious truth 
that the Eternal Son had a human and progressive 
childhood. Happy the child who is suffered to be and 
content to be what God meant it to be — a child while 
childhood lasts. Happy the parent who does not force 
artificial manners, precocious feeling, premature re- 
ligion. Our age is one of stimulus and high press- 
ure. We live, as it were, our lives out fast. Effect is 
everything, — results produced at once ; something to 
show and something that may tell. The folio of patient 
years is replaced by the pamphlet that stirs men's curi- 
osity to-day, and to-morrow is forgotten. ^' Plain 
19 



218 THE EAELY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

living and high thinking are no more." The town, 
with its fever and its excitements, and its colHsion of 
mind with mind, has spread over the country ; and 
there is no country — scarcely home. To men who 
traverse England in a few hours, and spend only a por- 
tion of the year in one place. Home is becoming a 
vocable of past ages. 

The result is, that heart and brain, which were given 
to last for seventy years, wear out before their time. 
We have our exhausted men of twenty-five, and our 
old men of forty. Heart and brain give way, — the 
heart hardens and the brain grows soft. 

Brethren ! the Son of G-od lived till thirty in an ob- 
scure village of Judea unknown, then came forth a 
matured and perfect Man, — with mind, and heart, and 
frame, in perfect balance of humanity. It is a Divine 
lesson ! I would I could say as strongly as I feel 
deeply. Our stimulating artificial culture destroys 
depth. Our competition, our nights turned into days 
by pleasure, leave no time for earnestness. We 
are superficial men. Character in the world wants 
root. England has gained much; she has lost, also, 
much. The world wants what has passed away ; and 
which, until we secure, we shall remain the clever 
shallow men we are, — a childhood and a youth spent 
in shade — a Home. 

Now, this growth took place in three particulars. 

I. In spiritual strength. ^^ The child waxed strong 
in spirit." 

Spiritual strength consists of two things -^ power 
of WiU, and power of Self-restraint. It req^uires two 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OP JESUS. 219 

things, therefore, for its existence — strong feehngs, 
and strong command over them. 

Now, it is here we make a great mistake ; we mis- 
take strong feelings for strong character. A man who 
bears all before him, — before whose frown domestics 
tremble, and whose bursts of fury make the children 
of the house quake, — because he has his will obeyed, 
and his own way in all things, we call him a strong 
man. The truth is, that is the weak man : it is his pas 
sions that are strong ; he, mastered by them, is weak. 
You must measure the strength of a man by the power 
of the feelings which he subdues, not by the power 
of those which subdue him. 

And hence composure is very often the highest 
result of strength. Did we never see a man receive 
a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale, and then 
reply quietly? That was a man spiritually strong. 
Or, did we never see a man, in anguish, stand as if 
carved out of solid rock mastering himself? or, one 
bearing a hopeless daily trial, remain silent, and never 
tell the world what it was that cankered his home- 
peace ? That is strength. He who, with strong pas- 
sions, remains chaste, — he who, keenly sensitive, with 
manly power of indignation in him, can be provoked, 
and yet refrain himself, and forgive, — these are strong 
men, spiritual heroes. 

The child waxed strong, — spiritual strength is 
reached by successive steps. Fresh strength is got 
by every mastery of self. It is the belief of the sav- 
age, that the spirit of every enemy he slays enters 
into him and becomes added to his own, accumulating 
a warrior's strength for the day of battle ; therefore he 
slays all he can. It is true in the spiritual warfare. 



220 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

Every sin you slay, the spirit of that sin passes into 
you transformed into strength; every passion, not 
merely kept in abeyance by asceticism, but subdued 
by a higher impulse, is so much character strength- 
ened. The strength of the passion not expended is 
yours still. Understand, then, you are not a man of 
spiritual power because your impulses are irresistible. 
They sweep over your soul like a tornado — lay all 
flat before them — whereupon you feel a secret pride 
of strength. Last week men saw a vessel on this 
coast borne headlong on the breakers, and dashing 
itself with terrific force against the shore. It em- 
bedded itself, a miserable wreck, deep in sand and shin- 
gle. Was that brig, in her convulsive throes, strong? 
or, was it powerless and helpless ? 

No, my brethren: God's spirit in the soul, — an 
inward power of doing the thing we will and ought, — 
that is strength, nothing else. All other force in us 
is only our weakness, — the violence of driving Pas- 
sion. "I can do all things through Christ, who 
strengtheneth me," — that is Christian strength. " I 
cannot do the things I would," — that is the weakness 
of an unredeemed slave. 

1 instance one single evidence of strength in the 
early years of Jesus ; I find it in that calm, long wait- 
ing of thirty years before He began His Work. And 
yet all the evils He was to redress were there, provok- 
ing indignation, crying for interference, — the hollow- 
ness of social life, the misinterpretations of Scripture, 
the forms of worship and phraseology which had hid- 
den moral truth, the injustice, the priestcraft, the cow- 
ardice, the hypocrisies : He had long seen them all. 

All those years His soul burned within him with a 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 221 

Divine zeal and heavenly indignation. A mere man 
— a weak, emotional man, of spasmodic feeling, — a 
hot enthusiast, — would have spoken out at once, and 
at once been crushed. The Everlasting Word incar- 
nate bided His- own time: "Mine hour is not yet 
come," — matured His energies, condensed them by 
repression, and then went forth to speak, and do, and 
suffer. His hour was come. This is strength : the 
power of a Divine Silence ; the strong will, to keep 
force till it is wanted ; the power to wait God's time. 
" He that believeth/' said the wise prophet, " shall not 
make haste." 

n. Growth in wisdom, — "filled with wisdom." 
Let us distinguish wisdom from two things. From 
information first. It is one thing to be well informed ; 
it is another to be wise. Many books read, innumer- 
aole facts hived up in a capacious memory, this does 
not constitute wisdom. Books give it not ; sometimes 
the bitterest experience gives it not. Many a heart- 
break may have come as the result of life-errors and 
life-mistakes, and yet men may be no wiser than be- 
fore. Before the same temptations they fall again in 
the self-same way they fell before. Where they erred 
in youth they err still in age — a mournful truth ! 
" Ever learning," said St. Paul, " and never able to 
come to a knowledge of the truth." 

Distinguish wisdom again from talent. Brilliancy of 
powers is not the wisdom for which Solomon pi^ayed. 
Wisdom is of the heart rather than the intellect ; the 
harvest of moral thoughtfulness, patiently reaped in 
through years. Two things are required — Earnest* 

ness and Love. First, that rare thing, Earnestness, — 
19* 



222 THE EAELY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

the earnestness which looks on life practically. Some 
of the wisest of the race have been men who have 
scarcely stirred beyond home, read little, felt and 
thought much. " Give me/' said Solomon, " a wise 
and understanding heart." A heart which ponders 
upon life, trying to understand its mystery, not in 
order to talk about it like an orator, nor in order to 
theorize about it like a philosopher, but in order to 
know how to live and how to die. 

And, besides this, love is required for wisdom, — 
the love which opens the heart and makes it generous, 
and reveals secrets deeper than prudence or political 
economy teaches, — for example, " It is more blessed 
to give than to receive." Prudence did not calculate 
that; love revealed it. No man can be wise without 
love. Prudent — cunning: yes, but not wise. Who- 
ever has closed his heart to love has got wisdom at 
one entrance quite shut out. A large, genial, loving 
heart — with that we have known a ploughman wise ; 
without it, we know a hundred men of statesmen-like 
sagacity fools — profound, but not wise. There was a 
man who pulled down his barns and built greater, — a 
most sagacious man, getting on in life, acquiring, 
amassing, and all for self. The men of that genera- 
tion called him, no doubt, wise : God said, " Thou 
fool." 

Speaking humanly, the steps by which the wisdom 
of Jesus was acquired were two. 

1. The habit of inquiry. 2. The collision of mind 
with other minds. Both these we find in this anec- 
dote : His parents found Him with the doctors in the 
Temple, both hearing and asking them questions. 
For the mind of man left to itself is unproductive ; 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 223 

ftlone in the wild woods, he becomes a savage. Taken 
away from school early, and sent to the plough, the 
country boy loses, by degrees, that which distinguishes 
him from the cattle that he drives, and over his very 
features and looks the low animal expression creeps. 
Mind is necessary for mind. The Mediatorial sys- 
tem extends through all God's dealings with us. 
The higher man is the mediator between God and the 
lower man ; only through man can man receive devel- 
opment. 

For these reasons, we call this event at Jerusalem 
a crisis or turning point in the history of Him who 
was truly Man. 

He had come from Nazareth's quiet valley and 
green slopes on the hill-side, where hill and valley, 
and cloud and wind, and day and night, had nourished 
his child's heart, — from communion with minds pro- 
verbially low, for the adage was, " Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth?" — to the capital of His 
country, to converse with the highest and most culti- 
vated intellects. He had many a question to ask, and 
many a difficulty to solve. As, for instance, such as 
this : How could the religion accredited in Jerusalem 
— a religion of long prayers and church services, and 
phylacteries, and rigorous sabbaths — be reconciled 
with the stern, manly righteousness of which He had 
read in the old prophets ; a righteousness, not of 
litany-makers, but of men with swords in their hands 
and zeal in their hearts, setting up God's kingdom 
upon earth ? — a kingdom of Truth, and Justice, and 
Realities, — were they bringing in that kingdom? — 
And if not, who should ? Such questions had to be 
felt, and asked, and pondered on. Thenceforth we 



224 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

say, therefore, in all reverence, dated the intellectual 
life of Jesus. From that time " Jesus increased in 
wisdom J^ 

Not that they, the doctors of the Temple, contrib- 
uted much. Those ecclesiastical pedants had not 
much to tell Him that was worth the telling. They 
were thinking about theology, — He about Religion. 
They about rubrics and church services, — He about 
God His Father, and His Will. And yet He gained 
more from them than they from Him. Have we never 
observed that the deepest revelations of ourselves are 
often made to us by trifling remarks met with here 
and there in conversation and books, — sparks which 
set a whole train of thoughts on fire ? Nay, that a 
false view given by an inferior mind has led us to a 
true one ; and that conversations from which we had 
expected much light, turning out unsatisfactorily, have 
thrown us upon ourselves and God, and so become 
almost the birth-times of the soul? The truth is, it is 
not the amount which is poured in that gives wisdom, 
but the amount of creative mind and heart working 
on and stirred by what is so poured in. That conver- 
sation with miserable priests and formalists called into 
activity the One Creative Mind which was to fertilize 
the whole spiritual life of man to the end of time ; 
and Jesus grew in wisdom by a conversation with 
pedants of the law. 

What Jerusalem was to Him, a town life is to us. 
Knowledge develops itself in the heated atmosphere 
of town life. Where men meet, and thought clashes 
with thought, — where workmen sit round a board at 
work, — intellectual irritability must be stirred more 
ihan where men live and work alone. The march of 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 225 

mind, as they call it, must go on. Whatever evils 
there may be in our excited, feverish modern life, it 
is quite certain that we know through it more than 
our forefathers knew. The workman knows more of 
foreign politics than most statesmen knew two centu- 
ries ago. The child is versed in theological questions, 
wliich only occupied master minds once. But the 
question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Tem- 
ple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom ; and 
whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, 
we are feeling more of its sacred law ; and whether, 
having left behind the priests, and the scribes, and the 
doctors, and the fathers, we are about our Father^s 
business, and becoming wise to God. 

III. Growth in grace, — " the grace of God was 
upon Him." And this in three points : 

1. The exchange of an earthly for a heavenly home. 

2. Of an earthly for a heavenly parent. 

3. The reconciliation to domestic duties. 

First step : Exchange of an earthly for a heavenly 
home. 

Jesus was in the Temple for the first time. That 
which was dull routine to others, through dead habit, 
was full of vivid impression, fresh life, and God, 
to Him. " My Father's business " — " My Father's 
house." How different the meaning of these expres- 
sions now from what it had been before ! Before, all 
was limited to the cottage of the carpenter ,* now, it 
extended to the temple. He had felt the sanctities 
of a new home. In after-life the phrase which He 
had learned by earthly experience obtained a Divine 



226 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

significance. "In my Father's house are many man- 
sions." 

Our first hfe is spontaneous and instinctive. Our 
second hfe is reflective. There is a moment when the 
hfe spontaneous passes into the hie reflective. We 
hve at first by instinct ; then we look in, feel our- 
selves, — ask what we are, and whence we came, and 
whither we are bound. In an awful new world of 
mystery, and destinies, and duties, we feel God, and 
know that our true home is our Father's house, which 
has many mansions. 

Those are fearful, solitary moments, in which the 
heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger inter- 
maddleth not with its joys. Father — mother — can- 
not share these ; and to share is to intrude. The soul 
first meets God alone. So with Jacob when he saw 
the dream-ladder ; so with Samuel when the Voice 
called him ; so with Christ. So, with every son of man, 
God visits the soul in secrecy, in silence, and in soli- 
tariness. And the danger and duty of a teacher is 
two-fold. 1st, to avoid hastening that feeling — hurry- 
ing that crisis-moment, which some call conversion. 
2d, to avoid crushing it. I have said that first religion 
is a kind of instinct ; and if a child does not exhibit 
strong religious sensibilities, — if he seem "heedless, 
untouched by awe or serious thought," — still it is wiser 
not to interfere. He may be still at home with God; 
he may be worshipping at home ; as has been said, 
with not less truth than beauty, he may be 

" Lying in Abraham's bosom all the year, 
And worship — at the Temple's inner shrine," 

God being with him when he knew it not. Yery mys- 
terious, and beautiful, and wonderful, is God's com- 



THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 227 

munius: with the unconscious soul before reflection 
comes. The second caution is not to quench the 
feeling. Joseph and the Virgin chid the Child for His 
absence : " Why hast thou dealt so with us ? " They 
could not understand His altered ways, His neglect of 
apparent duties, His indifference to usual pursuits. 
They mourned over the change. And this reminds us 
of the way in which Affection's voice itself ministers 
to ruin. When God comes to the heart, and His pres- 
ence is shown by thoughtfulness, and seriousness, and 
distaste to common business, and loneliness, and soli- 
tary musings, and a certain tone of melancholy, 
straightway we set ourselves to expostulate, to rebuke, 
to cheer, to prescribe amusement and gayeties, as the 
cure for seriousness which seems out of place. Some 
of us have seen that tried; and, more fearful still, 
seen it succeed. And we have seen the spirit of frivol- 
ity and thoughtlessness, which had been banished for 
a time, come back again, with seven spirits of evil 
more mighty than himself, and the last state of that 
person worse than the first. And we have watched 
the still small voice of God in the soul silenced. And 
we have seen the spirit of the world get its victim 
back again, and incipient Goodness dried up like morn- 
ing dew upon his heart. And they that loved him did 
it — his parents, his teachers. They quenched the 
smoking flax, and turned out the lamp of God lighted 
in the soul. 

The last step was reconciliation to domestic duties. 
He went down to Nazareth, and was subject unto 
them. The first step in spirituality is to get a distaste 
for common duties. There is a time when creed^ 
ceremonies, services, are distasteful; when the conven* 



228 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. 

tional arrangements of society are intolerable burdens; 
and when, aspiring with a sense of vague longing 
after a goodness which shall be immeasurable, a duty 
which shall transcend mere law, a something which we 
cannot put in words, all restraints of rule and habit 
gall the spirit. But the last and highest step in spirit- 
uality is made in feeling these common duties again 
divine and holy. This is the true liberty of Christ, 
when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not 
in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in 
fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin. And 
this is the blessed second childhood of Christian life. 
All the several stages towards it seem to be shadowed 
forth with accurate truthfulness in the narrative of the 
Messiah's infancy. First, the quiet, unpretending, un- 
conscious obedience and innocence of home. Then, 
the crisis of inquiry ; new, strange thoughts, entrance 
upon a new world, hopeless seeking of truth from 
those who cannot teach it, hearing many teachers, and 
questioning all ; thence bewilderment and bitterness, 
loss of relish for former duties ; and small consolation 
to a man in knowing that he is further off from heaven 
than when he was a boy. And then, lastly, the true 
reconciliation and atonement of our souls to God — a 
second spring-tide of life, a second Faith deeper than 
that of childhood, not instinctive, but conscious trust, 
childlike love come back again, childlike wonder, 
childlike implicitness of obedience, only deeper than 
childhood ever knew. When life has got a new mean- 
ing ; when " old things are passed away, and all things 
are become new ; " when earth has become irradiate 
with the feeling of our Father's business and our 
Father'f! Home. 



XVI. 

[Preached January 9, 1853.] 

CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 

Luke xix. 10. — "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that 

which was lost." 

These words occur in the history which tells of the 
recovery of Zaccheus from a life of worldliness to the 
life of God. Zaccheus was a publican ; and the pub- 
licans were outcasts among the Jews, because, having 
accepted the office, under the Koman government, of 
collecting the taxes imposed by Rome upon their 
brethren, they were regarded as traitors to the cause 
of Israel. Reckoned a degraded class, they became 
degraded. It is hard for any man to live above the 
moral standard acknowledged by his own class ; and 
the moral standard of the publican was as low as pos- 
sible. The first step downwards is to sink in the esti- 
mation of others, — the next, and fatal step, is to sink 
in a man's own estimation. The value of character is, 
that it pledges men to be what they are taken for. It 
is a fearful thing to have no character to support — 
nothing to fall back upon, nothing to keep a man up 
to himself. Now, the publicans had no character. 

Into the house of one of these outcasts the Son of 

Man had entered. It was quite certain that such an 
20 (229) 



230 Christ's estimate op sin. 

act would be commented upon severely by people who 
called themselves religious ; it would seem to them 
scandalous, an outrage upon decency, a defiance to 
every rule of respectability and decorum. No pious 
Israelite would be seen holding equal intercourse with 
a publican. In anticipation of such remarks, before 
there was time, perhaps, to make them, Jesus spoke 
these words : " The Son of Man is come to seek and 
to save that which was lost." 

They exhibit the peculiar aspect in which the Re- 
deemer contemplated sin. 

There are two ways of looking at sin : One is the 
severe view. It makes no allowance for frailty ,* it will 
not hear of temptation, nor distinguish between cir- 
cumstances. Men who judge in this way shut their 
eyes to all but two objects, — a plain law, and a trans- 
gression of that law. There is no more to be said : 
let the law take its course. Now, if this be the right 
view of sin, there is abundance of room left for admir- 
ing what is good, and honorable, and upright ; there is 
positively no room provided for restoration. Happy 
if you have done well; but if ill, then nothing is 
before you but judgment and fiery indignation. 

The other view is one of laxity and false liberalism. 
When such men speak, prepare yourself to hear 
liberal judgments and lenient ones ; a great deal about 
human weakness, error in judgment, mistakes, an unfor- 
tunate constitution, on which the chief blame of sin is 
to rest — a good heart. All well, if we wanted, in this 
mysterious struggle of a life, only consolation. But 
we want far beyond comfort, — Goodness; ar^d to be 
merely made easy when we have done wrong will not 
help us to that 1 



I 
CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 231 

Distinct from both of these was Christ's view of 
guilt. His standard of Right was high, — higher than 
ever man had placed it before. Not moral excellence, 
but heavenly, He demanded. " Except your right- 
eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." Read the Sermon on the Mount. It 
tells of a purity as of snow resting on an Alpine pin- 
nacle, white in the blue holiness of heaven ; and yet, 
also, He, the All-pure, had tenderness for what was 
not pure. He who stood in Divine uprightness that 
never faltered felt compassion for the ruined, and 
infinite gentleness for human fall. Broken, disap- 
pointed, doubting hearts, in dismay and bewilderment, 
never looked in vain to Him. Very strange, if w^e 
stop to think of it, instead of repeating it, as a matter 
of course. For generally human goodness repels from 
it evil men ; they shun the society and presence of 
men reputed good, as owls fly from light. But here 
was purity attracting evil ; that was the wonder. Har- 
lots and wretches steeped in infamy gathered round 
Him. No wonder the purblind Pharisees thought 
there must be something in Him like such sinners 
which drew them so. Like draws to like. If He 
chose their society before that of the Pharisees, was 
it not because of some congeniality in Evil ? But they 
did crowd His steps, and that because they saw a 
hope opened out in a hopeless world for fallen spirits 
and broken hearts, — ay, and seared hearts. The Son 
of Man was forever standing among the lost ; and His 
ever-predominant feelings were sadness for the evil in 
human nature, hope for the Divine good in it. and tho 
Divine image never worn out wholly. 



232 Christ's estimate of sin. 

1 perceive in this description three peculiarities, 
distinguishing Christ from ordinary men. 

I. A peculiarity in the constitution of the Redeem- 
er's moral nature. 

II. A peculiarity in the objects of His solicitude. 

III. A peculiarity in His way of treating guilt. 

I. In His moral constitution. Manifested in that 
peculiar title which He assumed — The Son of Man. 

Let us see what that implies. 

1. It implies fairly His Divine origin ; for it is an 
emphatic expression, and, as we may so say, an unnatu- 
ral one. Imagine an apostle — St. Paul or St. John — 
insisting upon it perpetually that he himself was 
human. It would almost provoke a smile to hear 
either of them averring and affirming, I am the Son of 
Man ; it would be unnatural, the affectation of conde- 
sceiision w.ould be intolerable. Therefore, when we 
hear these words from Christ, we are compelled to 
think of them as contrasted with a higher Nature. 
None could, without presumption, remind men that He 
was their Brother, and a Son of Man, except One, who 
was also something higher, even the Son of God. 

2 It implies the catholicity of His Brotherhood. 
Nothing, in the judgment of historians, stands out so 

sharply distinct as race, — national character ; noth- 
ing is more ineffaceable. The Hebrew was marked 
from all mankind. The Roman was perfectly distinct 
from the Grecian character ; as markedly different as 
the rough English truthfulness is from Celtic brilliancy 
of talent. Now, these peculiar nationalities are sel- 
dom combined. You rarely find the stern old Jewish 
sense of holiness going together with the Atheniaij 



Christ's estimate of sin. 233 

sensitiveness of what is beautiful. Not often do you 
find together severe truth and refined tenderness. 
Brilhancy seems opposed to perseverance. Exquisite- 
ness of Taste commonly goes along with a certain 
amount of untruthfulness. By Humanity, as a whole, 
we mean the aggregate of all these separate excel- 
lences. Only in two places are they all found together, 
— in the universal human race and in Jesus Christ. 
He having, as it were, a whole humanity in Himself, 
combines them all. 

Now, this is the universality of the Nature of Jesus 
Christ. There was in Him no national peculiarity or 
individual idiosyncrasy. He was not the Son of the 
Jew, nor the Son of the Carpenter, nor the ofi'spring 
of the modes of living and thinking of that particu- 
lar century. He^ was the Son of Man. Once in the 
world's history was born a Man. Once in the roll of 
ages, out of innumerable failures, from the stock 
of human nature one Bud developed itself into a 
faultless Flower. One perfect specimen of humanity 
has God exhibited on earth. 

The best and most catholic of Englishmen has his 
prejudices. All the world over, our greatest writer 
would be recognized as having the Enghsh cast of 
thought. The pattern Jew would seem Jewish every- 
where but in Judea. Take Abraham, St. John, St. 
Paul, place them where you will, — in China or in Peru, 
— they are Hebrews ; they could not command all sym- 
pathies ; their life could not be imitable except in part. 
They are foreigners in every land, and out of place in 
every century, but their own. But Christ is the king 
of men, and " draws all men," because all character is 
in Him, separate from nationalities and limitations. As 

20* 



234 CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OP SIN. 

if the life-blood of every nation were in His veins, 
and that which is best and truest in every man, and 
that which is tenderest and gentlest and purest in 
every woman, in His character. He is emphatically 
the Son of Man. 

Out of this arose two powers of His sacred human- 
ity, — the universality of His sympathies, and their 
intense particular personality. 

The universality of His sympathies: for, compare 
Him with any one of the sacred characters of Scrip- 
ture. You know how intensely national they were, 
priests, prophets, and apostles, in their sympathies. 
For example, the apostles " marvelled that He spake 
with a woman of Samaria;" — just before His resur- 
rection, their largest charity had not reached beyond 
this, — ^' Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the king- 
dom unto Israel ? " Or, to come down to modern times, 
when His spirit has been moulding men's ways of 
thought for many ages ; — now, when we talk of our 
philanthropy and catholic liberality, here in Christian 
England, we have scarcely any fellow-feeling, true and 
genuine, with other nations, other churches, other 
parties, than our own ; we care nothing for Italian or 
Hungarian struggles ; we think of Romanists as the 
Jew thought of Gentiles ; we speak of German Prot- 
estants in the same proud, wicked, self-sufficient way 
in which the Jew spoke of Samaritans. 

Unless we bring such matters home, and away from 
vague generalities, and consider what we and all men 
are, or rather are not, we cannot comprehend with 
due wonder the mighty sympathies of the heart of 
Christ. None of the miserable antipathies that fence 
us from all the world bounded the outgoings of that 



CHRIST^S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 235 

Love, broad, and deep, and wide as the heart of God. 
Wherever the mysterious pulse of human life was 
beating, wherever aughi human was in struggle, there 
to Him was a thing not common or unclean, but 
cleansed by God and sacred. Compare the daily, 
almost indispensable language of our life with His 
spirit. ''Common people?" — Point us out the pas- 
sage where he called any people, that God His Father 
made, common? "Lower Orders?" — Tell us when 
and where He, whose home was the workshop of the 
carpenter, authorized you or me to know any man 
after the flesh as low or high? To Him who called 
Himself the Son of Man, the link was manhood. And 
that He could discern even when it was marred. Even 
in outcasts His eye could recognize the sanctities of a 
nature human still. Even in the harlot, " one of Eve's 
family ; " — a son of Abraham even in Zaccheus. 

Once more, out of that universal, catholic Nature 
rose another power, — the power of intense, particular, 
personal affections. He was the Brother and Saviour 
of the human race ; but this because He was the 
Brother and Saviour of every separate man in it. 

Now,' it is very easy to feel great affection for a 
country as a whole ; to have, for instance, great sym- 
pathies for Poland, or Ireland, or America, and yet not 
care a whit for any single man in Poland, and to have 
strong antipathies to every single individual American. 
Easy to be a warm lover of England, and yet not love one 
living Englishman. Easy to set a great value on a flock 
of sheep, and yet have no particular care for any one 
sheep or lamb. If it were killed, another of the same 
species might replace it. Easy to have fine, large, 
liberal views about the working-classes, or the emanci- 



236 cheist's estimate of sin. 

pation of the negroes, and yet never have done a 
loving act to one. Easy to be a great philanthropist, 
and yet have no strong friendships, no deep personal 
attachments. 

For the idea of an universal Manlike sympathy was 
not new when Christ was born. The reality was new. 
But before this, in the Roman theatre, deafening ap- 
plause was called forth by this sentence, — ''I am a 
man, — nothing that can affect man is indifferent to 
me.'' A fine sentiment — that was all. Every pretence 
of realizing that sentiment, except one, has been a 
failure. One, and but one, has succeeded in loving 
man — and that by loving men. No sublime high- 
sounding language in His lips about educating the 
masses, or elevating the people. The charlatanry of 
our modern sentiment had not appeared then ; it is but 
the parody of His Love. 

What was His mode of sympathy with men ? He 
did not sit down to philosophize about the progress 
of the species, or dream about a millennium. He 
gathered round Him twelve men. He formed one 
friendship, special, concentrated, deep. He did not 
give Himself out as the Leader of the Publican's 
cause, or the Champion of the Rights of the dangerous 
classes : but he associated with Himself Matthew, a 
publican called from the detested receipt of custom ; 
he went into the house of Zaccheus, and treated him 
like a fellow-creature, a brother, and a son of Abra- 
ham. His catholicity, or philanthropy, was not an 
abstraction, but an aggregate of personal attachments. 

n. Peculiarity in the objects of Christ's solicitude. 
He had come to seek and to save the '' losV^ The 



Christ's estimate of sin. 237 

world is lost, and Christ came to save the world. But, 
by the lost in this place, He does not mean the world ; 
He means a special class, lost in a more than common 
sense, as sheep are lost which have strayed from the 
flock, and wanderfid far beyond all their fellows scat- 
tered in the wilderness. 

Some men are lost by the force of their own pas- 
sions : as Balaam was by love of gold ; as Saul was by 
self-will ending in jealousy, and pride darkened into 
madness ; as Haman was by envy indulged and 
brooded on ; as the harlots were, through feelings 
pure and high at first, inverted and perverted; as 
Judas was by secret dishonesty, undetected in its first 
beginnings — the worst misfortune that can' befall a 
tendency to a false life. And others are lost by the 
entanglement of outward circumstances, which make 
escape, humanly speaking, impossible. Such were the 
publicans, — men forced^ like executioners, into degra- 
dation. An honest publican, or a holy executioner, 
would be miracles to marvel at. And some are lost by 
the laws of society, which, defending society, have no 
mercy for its outcasts, and forbid their return — fallen 
once forever. 

Society has power to bind on earth ; and what it 
binds is bound upon the soul indeed. 

For a man or woman who has lost self-respect is lost 
indeed. 

And, ! the untold world of agony contained in 
that expression — "a lost soul!" — agony exactly in 
proportion to the nobleness of original powers. For 
it is a strange and mournful truth, that the qualities 
which calculate to shine are exactly those which min- 
ister to the worst ruin. God's highest gifts, — talent, 



238 Christ's estimate op sin. 

beauty, feeling, imagination, power, — they carry with 
them the possibility of the highest heaven and the 
lowest hell. Be sure that it is by that which is highest 
in you that you may be lost. It is the awful warning, 
and not the excuse of evil, that the light which leads 
astray is light from heaven. The shallow fishing-boat 
glides safely over the reefs where the noble bark 
strands : it is the very might and majesty of her careei 
that bury the sharp rock deeper in her bosom. There 
are thousands who are not lost (like the respectable 
Pharisees), because they had no impetuous impulses 
— no passion — no strong enthusiasm, by the perver- 
sion of which they could be lost. 

Now, this will explain to us what there was in these 
lost ones which left a hope for their salvation, and 
which Jesus saw in them to seek and save. Outwardly 
men saw a crust of black scowling impenitence — rep- 
robates, they called them. Below that outward crust 
ran a hot lava-stream of anguish. What was that? 
The coward fear of hell? Nay, hardened men defy 
hell. The anguish of the lost ones of this world is not 
fear of punishment. It was and is the misery of hav- 
ing quenched a light brighter than the sun ; the intol- 
erable sense of being sunk ; the remorse of knowing 
that they were not what they might have been. And 
He saw that ; He knew it was the germ of life, which 
God's spirit could develop into salvation. 

It was His work and His desire to save such ; and in 
this world a new and strange solicitude it was, for the 
world had seen before nothing like it. 

Not half a century ago, a great man was seen stoop- 
ing and working in a charnel-house of bones. Un- 
couth, nameless fragments lay around him, which the 



Christ's estimate of sin. 239 

workmen had dug up and thrown aside as rubbish. 
They belonged to some far-back age, and no man knew 
what they were or whence — few men cared. The 
world was merry at the sight of a philosopher groping 
among mouldy bones. But when that creative mind, 
reverently discerning the fontal types of living being 
in diverse shapes, brought together those strange frag- 
ments, bone to bone, and rib to claw, and tooth to its 
own corresponding vertebra, re-combining the won- 
drous forms of past ages, and presenting each to the 
astonished world as it moved and Kved a hundred 
thousand ages back, then men began to perceive that 
a new science had begun on earth. 

And such Avas the work of Christ. They saw Him 
at work among the fragments and mouldering wreck 
of our humanity, and sneered. But He took the dry 
bones such as Ezekiel saw in Vision, which no man 
thought could Kve, and He breathed into them the 
breath of life. He took the scattered fragments of 
our ruined nature ; interpreted their meaning, showed 
the original intent of those powers, which were now 
destructive only ; drew out from publicans and sinners 
yearnings which were incomprehensible, and feelings 
which were misunderstood ; vindicated the beauty of 
the original intention ; showed the Divine Order below 
the chaos ; exhibited to the world once more a human 
soul in the form in which God had made it, saying to 
the dry bones, " Live ! '' 

Only what in the great foreigner was a taste, in 
Christ was love. In the one, the gratification of an 
enlightened curiosity; in the other, the gratification 
of a sublime afi'ection. In the philosopher, it was a, 
longing to restore and reproduce the past ; in Christ, 



240 CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 

a hope for the future, — " to seek and to save that which 
was lost" 

III. A pecuharity in His mode of treatment. How 
were those lost ones to be restored? The human 
plans are reducible to three. Government have tried 
chastisement for the reclamation of offenders. For 
ages that was the only expedient known either to 
church or state. Time has written upon it Failure. 
I do not say that penal severity is not needful. Per- 
haps it is, for protection, and for the salutary expres- 
sion of indignation against certain forms of evil. But 
as a system of reclamation it has failed. Did the rack 
ever reclaim, in heart, one heretic ? Did the scaffold 
ever soften one felon ? One universal fact of history 
replies : Where the penal code was mos't sanguinary, 
and when punishments were most numerous, crime 
was most abundant. 

Again, society has tried exclusion for life. I do not 
pretend to say that it may not be needful. It may be 
necessary to protect your social purity, by banishing 
offenders of a certain sort forever. I only say for 
recovery it is a failure. Who ever knew one case 
where the ban of exclusion was hopeless, and the 
shame of that exclusion reformed ? Did we ever hear 
of a fallen creature made moral by despair ? Name, if 
you can, the publican or the harlot, in any age, brought 
back to goodness by a Pharisee, or by the system of 
a Pharisee. 

And once more, some governors have tried the sys- 
tem of indiscriminate lenity : they forgave great crim- 
inals, trusting all the future to gratitude ; they passed 
over great sins, — they sent away the ringleaders of 



Christ's estimate of sin. 241 

rebellion with honors heaped upon them : they thought 
this was the Gospel ; they expected dramatic emotion 
to work wonders. How far this miserable system has 
succeeded, let those tell us who have studied the his- 
tory of our South African colonies for the last twenty 
years. We were tired of cruelty: we tried senti- 
ment — we trusted to feeling. Feehng failed : we 
only made hypocrites, and encouraged rebellion by 
impunity. Inexorable severity, rigorous banishment, 
indiscriminate and mere forgivingness, all are failures. 

In Christ's treatment of guilt we find three peculiar- 
ities : sympathy, holiness, firmness. 

1. By human sympathy. In the treatment of Zac- 
cheus this was almost all. We read of almost nothing 
else as the instrument of that wonderful reclamation. 
One thing only, — Christ went to his house self-invited. 
But that one was everything. Consider it : Zaccheus 
was, if he were like other publicans, a hard and hard- 
ened man. He felt people shrink from him in the 
streets. He lay under an imputation ; and we know 
how that feeling of being universally suspected and 
misinterpreted makes a man bitter, sarcastic, and de- 
fiant. And so the outcast would go home, look at his 
gold, rejoice in the revenge he could take by false 
accusations ; felt a pride in knowing that they might 
hate, but could not help fearing him; scorned the 
world, and shut up his heart against it. 

At last, one whom all men thronged to see, and all 
men honored, or seemed to honor, came to him, — 
off'ered to go home and sup with him. For the first 
time for many years, Zaccheus felt that he was not 
despised, and the flood-gates of that avaricious, shut 
heart were opened in a tide of love and generosity. 
21 



242 CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN. 

" Beliold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the 
poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by 
false accusation, I restore him four-fold." 

He was reclaimed to human feeling by being taught 
that he was a man still ; recognized and treated like a 
man. A Son of Man had come to " seek" him, the lost. 

2. By the exhibition of Divine holiness. 

The holiness of Christ differed from all earthly, 
common, vulgar holiness. Wherever it was, it elicited 
a sense of sinfulness and imperfection. Just as 
the purest-cut crystal of the rock looks dim beside 
the diamond, so the best men felt a sense of guilt 
growing distinct upon their souls. When the Anointed 
of God came near, " Depart from me," said the 
bravest and truest of them all, " for I am a sinful man, 
Lord." 

But, at the same time, the holiness of Christ did 
not awe men away from Him, nor repel them. It 
inspired them with hope. It was not that vulgar, 
unapproachable sanctity which makes men awkward in 
its presence, and stands aloof Its peculiar character- 
istic was, that it made men enamored of goodness. It 
** drew all men unto Him." 

This is the difference between greatness that is first- 
rate and greatness which is second-rate, — between 
heavenly and earthly goodness. The second-rate and 
the earthly draws admiration on itself You say, 
" How great an act, — how good a man !" The first- 
rate and the heavenly imparts itself, — inspires a 
spirit. You feel a kindred something in you that 
rises up to meet it, and draws you out of yourself, 
making you better than you were before, and opening 
out the infinite possibilities of your life and soul. 



Christ's estimate op sin. 243 

And such preeminently was the hoHness of Christ. 
Had some earthly great or good one come to Zac- 
cheus^ house, a prince or a nobleman, his feeling 
would have been, What condescensioais there ! But, 
when He came whose every word and act had in 
it Life and Power, no such barren reflection was 
the result; but, instead, the beauty of holiness had 
become a power within him, and a longing for self- 
consecration. " Behold, Lord, the half of my goods 
I give to the poor ; and if I have taken anything 
from any man by false accusation, I restore him four- 
fold." 

3. By Divine sympathy, and by the Divine Image, 
exhibited in the speaking act of Christ, the lost 
was sought and saved. He was saved, as alone all 
fallen men can be saved. ^' Beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord, he was changed into the 
same image." And this is the very essence of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are redeemed by the 
Life of God without us, manifested in the Person 
of Christ, kindling into flame the Life of God that 
is within us. Without Him we can do nothing. 
Without Him the warmth that was in Zaccheus' heart 
would have smouldered uselessly away. Through 
Him it became Life and Light, and the lost was saved. 



XYII. 

[Preached January 16, 1853.] 

THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHKIST. 

John xvii. 19. — " And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also 
might be sanctified through the truth.' 

The prayer in which these words occur is given to 
us by the Apostle John alone. Perhaps only St. 
John could give it, for it belongs to the peculiar 
province of his revelation. He presents us with 
more of the heart of Christ than the other apostles ; 
with less of the outward manifestations. He gives 
us more conversations, — fewer miracles ; more of the 
inner life, — more of what Christ was, less of what 
Christ did. 

St. John's mind was not argumentative, but intuitive. 

There are two ways of reaching truth : by reasoning 

out, and by feeling out. All the profoundest truths are 

felt out. The deep glances into truth are got by Love. 

Love a man, that is the best way of understanding him. 

Feel a truth, that is the only w^ay of comprehending it. 

Not that you can put your sense of such truths into 

words^ in the shape of accurate maxims or doctrines ; 

but the truth is reached, notwithstanding. Compare 1 

Oor. ii. 15, 16. 

(244) 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 245 

Now, St. John fdt out truth. He understood his 
Lord by loving Him. You find no long trains of argu- 
ment in St. John's writings ; an atmosphere of contem- 
plation pervades all. Brief, full sentences, glowing 
with imagery of which the mere prose intellect makes 
nonsense, and which a warm heart alone interprets, — 
that is the character of his writing; very different from 
the other apostles. St. Peter's knowledge of Christ was 
formed by impetuous mistakes, corrected slowly and 
severely. St. Paul's Christianity was formed by prin- 
ciples wrought out glowing hot, as a smith hammers 
out ductile iron, in his unresting earnest fire of thought, 
where the Spirit dwelt in warmth and light forever, 
kindling the Divine fire of inspiration. St. John and 
St. John's Christianity were formed by personal view 
of Christ, intercourse with Him, and silent contempla- 
tion. Slowly, month by month and year by year, he 
■^azed on Christ in silence, and thoughtful adoration. 
^ Reflecting as from a glass the glory of the Lord,'' 
he became like Him : caught His tones, His modes of 
thought, His very expressions, and became partaker 
of His inward life. A " Christ was formed in him." 

Hence it was that this prayer was revealed to St. 
John alone of the apostles, and by him alone recorded 
for us. The Saviour's mind touched his ; through 
secret sympathy he was inspired with the mystic con- 
sciousness of what had passed and what was passing 
in the deeps of the soul of Christ. Its secret longings 
xnd its deepest struggles were known to John alone. 

This particular sentence in the prayer which I have 

taken for the text was pecuharly after the heart of 

the Apostle John. For I have said that to him the 

true life of Christ was rather the inner Life than the 
21* 



246 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

outward acts of life. Now, this sentence from the Hps 
of Jesus speaks of the Atoning Sacrifice as an inward 
mental act rather than as an outward deed; a self- 
consecration wrought out in the Will of Christ. For 
their sakes I am sanctifying myself. That is a resolve, 
— a secret of the inner Life. No wonder it was re- 
corded by St. John. 
The text has two parts. 

I. The sanctification of Jesus Christ. 

II. The sanctification of His people. 

I. Christ's sanctification of Himself. " For their 
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sancti- 
fied through the truth." 

We must explain this word " sanctify ; " upon it the 
whole meaning turns. Clearly, it has not the ordinary 
popular sense here of making holy. Christ was holy. 
He could not, by an inward effort or struggle, make 
Himself holy, for He was that already. 

Let us trace the history of the word " sanctify " in 
the early pages of the Jewish history. 

When the destroying angel smote the first-born of 
the Egyptian families, the symbolic blood on the lintei 
of every Hebrew house protected the eldest born from 
the plague of death. In consequence, a law of Moses 
viewed every eldest son in a peculiar light. He was 
reckoned as a thing devoted to the Lord, — redeemed, 
and therefore set apart. The word used to express 
this devotion is sanctify. " The Lord said unto Moses, 
Sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth 
the womb among the children of Israel, both of man 
and of beast : it is mine." 

By a subsequent arrangement these first-born were 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 247 

exchanged for the Levites. Instead of the eldest son 
in each family, a whole tribe was taken, and reckoned 
as set apart and devoted to Jehovah, just as now a sub- 
stitute is provided to serve in war in another's stead. 
Therefore, the tribe of Levi were said to be sanctified 
to God. 

Ask w^e what was meant by saying that the Levites 
were sanctified to God ? The ceremony of their sancti- 
fication will explain it to us. It was a very significant 
one. The priest touched with the typical blood of a 
sacrificed animal the Levite's right hand, right eye, 
right foot. This was the Levite's sanctification. It 
devoted every faculty and every power, — of seeing, 
doing, walking, — the right-hand faculties, the best and 
choicest, — to God's peculiar service. He was a man 
set apart. 

To sanctify, therefore, in the Hebrew phrase, meant to 
devote or consecrate. Let us pause for a few moments 
to gather up the import of this ceremony of the Le- 
vites. 

The first-born are a nation's hope ; they may be said 
to represent a whole nation. The consecration, there- 
fore, of the first-born, was the consecration of the en- 
tire nation by their representatives. Now, the Levites 
were substituted for the first-born. The Levites con- 
sequently represented all Israel, and by their conse- 
cration the life of Israel was declared to be in idea 
and by right a consecrated life to God. But further 
still. As the Levites represented Israel, so Israel itself 
was but a part taken for the whole, and represented 
the whole human race. If any one thinks this fanci- 
ful, let him remember the principle of representation 
on Avhich the whole Jewish system was built. For ex- 



248 THE SANCTIFTCATION OF CHRIST. 

ample — tlie first-fruits of the harvest were consecrated 
to God. Why ? To declare that portion, and that only, 
to be God's ? No ; St. Paul says, as a part for the 
whole, to teach and remind that the whole harvest was 
His. ^' If the first-fruits be holy, the lump also is holy." 
So, in the same way, God consecrated a peculiar people 
to Himself. Why ? The Jews say, because they alone 
are His. We say, as a part representative of the whole^ 
to show in one nation what all are meant to be. The 
holiness of Israel is a representative holiness. Just 
as the consecrated Levite stood for what Israel was 
meant to be, so the anointed and separated nation rep- 
resents forever what the whole race of man is in the 
Divine Idea, a thing whose proper life is perpetual con- 
secration. 

One step further. This being the true life of Hu- 
manity, name it how you wiU, — sanctification, consecra- 
tion, devotion, sacrifice, — Christ, the Kepresentative 
of the Race, submits Himself in the text to the universal 
law of this devotion. The true law of every life is 
consecration to God ; therefore Christ says, I conse- 
crate myself; else He had not been a Man in God's 
idea of manhood, — for the idea of Man which God had 
been for ages laboring to give through a consecrated 
tribe and a consecrated nation to the world, was the 
idea of a being whose life-law is sacrifice, every act 
and every thought being devoted to God. 

Accordingly, this is the view which Christ Himself 
gave of His own Divine Humanity. He spoke of it 
as of a thing devoted by a Divine decree. ^^ Say ye 
of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into 
the world. Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the 
Son of God?'' 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHEIST. 2-19 

We have reached, therefore, the meaning of this 
word in the text. For their sakes I sanctify, that is. 
consecrate or devote myself. The first meaning of 
sanctify is to set apart. But to set apart for God is to 
devote or consecrate ; and to consecrate a thing is to 
make it holy. And thus we have the three meanings 
of the word, — namely, to set apart, to devote, to make 
holy, — rising all out of one simple idea. 

To go somewhat into particulars. This sanctifica- 
tion is spoken of here chiefly as three-fold : Self-devo- 
tion by inward resolve — self-devotion to the Truth — 
self-devotion for the sake of others. 

1. He devoted Himself hy inward resolve. " I sanc- 
tify myself." God His Father had devoted Him before. 
He had sanctified and sent Him. It only reniained 
that this devotion should become by His own act 
se?/'-devotion — completed by His own will. Now, in 
that act of will consisted His sanctification of Himself. 

For, observe, this was done within ; in secret, soli- 
tary struggle — in wrestling with all temptations which 
deterred Him from His work — in resolve to do it 
unflinchingly ; in real human battle and victory. 

Therefore this self-sanctification applies to the whole 
tone and history of His mind. He was forever devot- 
ing Himself to work — forever bracing His human 
spirit to sublime resolve. But it applies peculiarly to 
certain special moments, when some crisis, as on this 
present occasion, came, which called for an act of will. 

The first of these moments which we read of came 
when he was twelve years of age. We pondered on 
it a few weeks ago. In the temple, that earnest con- 
versation with the doctors indicates to us that He had 
begun to revolve His own mission in His mind ; for 



250 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHEIST. 

the answer to His mother's expostulations shows us 
what had been the subject of those questions He had 
been putting: '.'Wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business ? " Solemn words, significant of a 
crisis in His mental history. He had been asking 
those doctors about His Father's business ; what it 
was, and how it was to be done by Him of whom He 
had read in the prophets, even Himself. This was the 
earliest self-devotion of Messias ; — the Boy was sanc- 
tifying Himself for life and manhood's work. 

The next time was in that preparation of the wil- 
derness which we call Christ's Temptation. You can- 
not look deeply into that strange story without 
perceiving that the true meaning of it lies in this, 
that the Saviour in that conflict was steeling His soul 
against the three-fold form in which temptation pre- 
sented itself to Him in after-life, to mar or neutralize 
His ministry. 

1st. To convert the hard, stony life of Duty into the 
comfort and enjoyment of this life ; to barter, like 
Esau, life for pottage ; to use Divine powers in Him 
only to procure bread of Earth. 

2d. To distrust God, and try impatiently some wild, 
sudden plan, instead of His meek and slow-appointed 
ways, — to cast Himself from the temple, as we dash 
ourselves against our destiny. 

3d. To do homage to the majesty of wrong; to 
worship Evil for the sake of success ,* making the 
world His own by force or by crooked policy, instead 
of suffering. 

These were the temptations of His life, as they are 
of ours. If you search through His history, you find 
that all trial was reducible to one or other of these 



THE SANCI1FICATI0N OF CHRIST. 251 

three forms. Id the wilderness His soul foresaw thera 
all ; they were all in spirit met then, fought and con- 
quered before they came in their reality. In the 
wilderness He had sanctified and consecrated Himself 
against all possible temptation, and Life thenceforward 
was only the meeting of that in Fact which had been 
in Resolve met already — a vanquished foe. 

I said He had sanctified Himself against every trial ; 
I should have said, against every one except the last. 
The temptation had not exhibited the terrors and the 
form of Death ; He had yet to nerve and steel Himself 
to that. And hence the lofty sadness which charac- 
terize? His later ministry, as He went down from the 
sunny mountain-tops of life into the darkening shades 
of the valley where lies the grave. There is a per- 
ceptible difference between the tone of His earlier and 
that of His later ministry, which, by its evidently unde- 
signed truthfulness, gives us a strong feeling of the 
reality of the history. 

At first all is bright, full of hope, signalized by suc- 
cess and triumph. You hear from Him joyous words 
of anticipated victory : *' I beheld Satan as lightning 
fall from heaven.'^ And we recollect how His first 
sermon in the synagogue of Capernaum was hailed ; 
how all eyes were fixed on Him, and his words seemed 
full of grace. 

Slowly, after this, there comes a change over the 
spirit of His life. The unremitting toil becomes more 
superhuman : " I must work the work of Him that sent 
Me while it is day ; the night cometh when no man can 
work." The cold presentiment of doom hangs more 
often on Him. He begins to talk to His disciples in 
mysterious hints of the betrayal and the cross. He ia 



252 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

going down into the cloudland, full of shadows where 
nothing is distinct, and His step becomes more solemn, 
and His language more deeply sad. Words of awe, 
the words as of a soul struggling to pierce through 
thick glooms of Mystery, and Doubt, and Death, come 
more often from His lips. For example : " Now is My 
soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me 
from this hour, but for this cause came I into the 
world." — '' My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto 
death." And here in the text is another of those 
sentences of mournful grandeur : " For their sakes I 
sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified 
through the truth." 

Observe the present, tense. Not I shall devote My- 
self, — but I sanctify, that is, I am sanctifying Myself, 
It was a mental struggle going on then. This prayer 
was, so to speak, part of His Gethsemane prayer, — 
the first utterances of it, broken by interruption, — 
then finished in the garden. The consecration and 
the Agony had begun — the long inward battle — 
which was not complete till the words came, too 
solemnty to be called triumphantly, though they were 
indeed the trumpet-tones of Man's grand victory, ^' It 
is finished." 

2. The sanctification of Christ was self-devotion to 
the Truth. 

I infer this, because He says, "I sanctify Myself, 
that they also might be sanctified through the truth." 
"' Also " implies that what His consecration was, theirs 
was. Now, theirs is expressly said to be sanctification 
by the truth. That, then, was His consecration, too. 
It was the truth which devoted Him, and marked Him 
out for death. 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 253 

For it was not merely death that made Christ's sac- 
rifice the world's Atonement. There is no special 
virtue in mere death, even though it be the death of 
God's own Son. Blood does not please God. " As I 
live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of 
the sinner." Do you think God has pleasure in the 
blood of the righteous? — blood, merely as blood? — 
death, merely as a debt of nature paid ? — suffering, 
merely as if suffering had in it mysterious virtue ? 

No, my brethren ! God can be satisfied with that 
only which pertains to the conscience and the will ; 
so says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews : 
" Sacrifices could never make the comers thereunto 
perfect." The blood of Christ was sanctified by the 
Will with which He shed it ; it is that which gives it 
value. It was a sacrifice offered up to conscience. 
He suffered as a Martyr to the Truth. He fell in fidel- 
ity to a cause. The sacred cause in which He fell was 
love to the human race : " Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man give his life for his friends." 
Now, that Truth was the Cause in which Christ died. 
We have His own words as proof: " To this end was 
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to hear 
witness to the Truths 

Let us see how His death was a martyrdom of wit- 
ness to Truth. 

First, He proclaimed the identity between religion 
and Goodness. He distinguished religion from correct 
views, accurate religious observances, and even from 
devout feehngs. He said that to be rehgious is to be 
good. " Blessed are the pure in heart .... Blessed 
are the merciful .... Blessed are the meek." Jus- 
22 



254 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

tice, mercy, truth — these He proclaimed as the real 
righteousness of God. 

But, because He taught the truth of Godhness, the 
Pharisees became His enemies : those men of opinions 
and maxims ; those men of ecclesiastical, ritual, and 
spiritual pretensions. 

Again, He taught spiritual Religion. God was not 
in the temple ; the temple was to come down. But 
Religion would survive the temple. God's temple was 
man's soul. 

Because He taught spiritual worship, the priests 
became His enemies. Hence came those accusations 
that He blasphemed the temple ; that He had said, con- 
temptuously, " Destroy this temple, and in three days 
I will raise it up." 

Once more, He struck a death-blow at Jewish exclu- 
sivenesb' ; He proclaimed the truth of the character of 
God. God, the Father. The hereditary descent from 
Abraham was nothing; the inheritance of Abraham's 
faith wap everything. God, therefore, would admit the 
Gentiles who inherited that faith. For God loved the 
world, — not a private few ; not the Jew only, not the 
elder brother who had been all his life at home, — but 
the prodigal younger brother, too, who had wandered 
far and sinned much. 

Now, because He proclaimed this salvation of the 
Gentiles, the whole Jewish nation were offended. 
The first time He ever hinted it at Capernaum, they 
took Him to the brow of the hill whereon their city 
was built, that they might throw Him thence. 
• And thus, by degrees, — priests, pharisees, rulers, 
rich, and poor, — He had roused them all against Him; 
and the Divine Martyr of the Truth stood alone at last 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 255 

beside the cross, when the world's life was to be won, 
without a friend. 

All this we must bear in mind, if we would under- 
stand the expression, " I sanctify Myself" He was 
sanctifying and consecrating Himself for this, — to 
be a Witness to the Truth, — a devoted one, conse- 
crated in His heart's deeps to die, — loyal to Truth, — 
even though it should have to give, as the reward of 
allegiance, not honors and kingdoms, but only a crown 
of thorns. 

3. The self-sanctification of Christ was for the sake 
of others. " For their sakes." . . . 

He obeyed the law of self-consecration for Himself, 
else He had not been man ; for that law is the uni- 
versal law of our human existence. But He obeyed 
it not for Himself alone, but for others also. It was 
vicarious self-devotion — that is, instead of others^ as 
the Representative of them. " For their sakes," as an 
example, " that they also might be sanctified through 
the truth." 

Distinguish between a model and an example. You 
copy the outline of a model ; you imitate the spirit of 
an example. Christ is our Example ; Christ is not our 
Mode.. You might copy the life of Christ — make 
Him a model in every act — and yet you might be not 
one whit more of a Christian than before. You might 
wash the feet of poor fishermen as He did ; live a wan- 
dering life, with nowhere to lay your head. You 
might go about teaching, and never use any words 
but His words, never express a religious truth except 
in Bible language, have no home, and mix with publi- 
cans and harlots. Then Christ would be your model ; 
you would have cox)ied His life, like a pi^^r^ie, line for 



256 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

line, and shadow for shadow, and yet you might not 
be Christlike. 

On the other hand, you might imitate Christ, get 
His Spirit, breathe the atmosphere of thought which 
He breathed, do not one single act which He did, but 
every act in His Spirit ; you might be rich, whereas 
He was poor ; never teach, whereas He was teaching 
always ; lead a life, in all outward particulars, the very 
contrast and opposite of His ; and yet the spirit of His 
self-devotion might have saturated your whole being, 
and penetrated into the life of every act, and the es- 
sence of every thought. Then Christ would have 
become your Example ; for we can only imitate that 
of which we have caught the spirit. 

Accordingly, He sanctified Himself that He might 
become a living, inspiring Example, firing men's hearts, 
by love, to imitation, — a burning and a shining Light 
shed upon the mystery of Life, to guide by u spirit of 
warmth lighting from within. In Christ there is not 
given to us a faultless essay on the loveliness of self- 
consecration, to convince our reason how beautiful it 
is ; but there is given to us a self consecrated One : a 
living Truth, a living Person ; a Life that was beau- 
tiful, a Death that we feel in our inmost hearts to have 
been Divine ; and all this in order that the Spirit of 
that consecrated Life and consecrated Death, through 
love, and wonder, and deep enthusiasm, may pass into 
us, and sanctify us, also, to the Truth, in life and 
death. He sacrificed Himself that we might oifer our- 
selves a living sacrifice to G-od. 

II. Christ's sanctification of His people : " That they 
also might be sanctified through the truth." 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 257 

To sanctify means two things. It means to devote, 
and it means to set apart. Yet these two meanings are 
but different sides of the same idea ; for to be devoted 
to God is to be separated from all that is opposed ti 
God. 

Those whom Christ sanctifies are separated fron 
two things : From the world's evil, and from tht 
world's spirit. 

1. From the world's evil. So in verse 15 : ''I pray 
not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, 
but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 
Not from physical evil, not from pain ; Christ does not 
exempt His own from such kinds of evil. Nay, we 
hesitate to call pain and sorrow evils, when we remem- 
ber what bright characters they have made, and when 
we recollect that almost all who came to Christ came 
impelled by suflering of some kind or other. For 
example, the Syrophenician woman had been driven to 
^' fall at His feet and worship Him," by the anguish of 
the tormented daughter whom she had watched. It 
was a widow that cast into the treasury all her living, 
and that widow poor. 

Possibly Want and Woe will be seen hereafter, when 
this world of Appearance shall have passed away, to 
have been, not evils, but God's blessed angels, and 
ministers of His most parental love. 

But the evil from which Christ's sanctification sepa- 
lates the soul is that worst of evils — properly speak- 
ing, the only evil — sin ; revolt from God, disloyalty 
to conscience, tyranny of the passions, strife of our 
self-will in conflict with the loving Will of God. This 
is our foe, — our only foe, that we have a right to hate 
with perfect hatred, meet it where we will, and under 

22* 



258 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHEIST. 

whatever form, in church or state, in false social max- 
ims, or in our own hearts. And it was to sanctify or 
separate us from this that Christ sanctified or conse- 
crated Himself. By the blood of His anguish, by the 
strength of His unconquerable resolve, we are sworn 
against it ; bound to be, or else sinning greatly, in a 
world of evil, consecrated spirits. 

2. The self-devotion of Christ separates us from the 
world's spirit. 

Distinguish between the world's evil and the world's 
spirit. Many things which cannot be classed amongst 
things evil are yet dangerous as things worldly. 

It is one of the most difficult of all ministerial duties 
to define what the world-spirit is. It cannot be identi- 
fied with vice, nor can unworldliness be defined as 
abstinence from vice. The Old Testament saints were 
many of them great transgressors. Abraham lied ; 
Jacob deceived ; David committed adultery. Crimes 
dark surely, and black enough ! And yet these men 
were unworldly — the spirit of the world was not in 
them. They erred and were severely punished ; for 
crime is crime in whomsoever it is found, and most a 
crime in a saint of God. But they were beyond their 
age ; they were not of the world. They were strang- 
ers and pilgrims upon earth. They were in the midst 
of innumerable temptations from within and from with- 
out, seeking after a better country, that is, an heavenly. 

Again, you cannot say that worldliness consists in 
mixing with many people, and unworldliness with few. 
Daniel was unworldly in the luxurious, brilliant '^ourt 
of Babylon ; Adam, in Paradise, had but one compan- 
ion — that one was the world to him. 

Again, the spirit of the world cannot be defined as 



THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 259 

consisting in any definite plainness of dress or peculiar 
mode of living. If we would be sanctified from the 
world when Christ comes, we must be found not strip- 
ping o-fi* the ornaments from our persons, but the cen- 
soriousness from our tongues, and the selfishness from 
our hearts. 

Once more, that which is a sign of unworldliness in 
one age is not a certain sign of it in another. In 
Daniel's age, when dissoluteness marked the world, 
frugal living was a sufficient evidence that he was not 
of the world. To say that he restrained his appetites, 
was nearly the same as saying that he was sanctified. 
But now, when intemperance is not the custom, a life 
as temperate as Daniel's might coexist with all that is 
worst of the spirit of the world in the heart. Almost 
no man then was temperate who was not serving God ; 
now, hundreds of thousands are self-controlled by 
prudence, who serve the world and self. 

Therefore, you cannot define sanctification by any 
outward marks or rules. But he who will thoughtfully 
watch will understand what is this peculiar sanctifica- 
tion or separation from the world which Christ desired 
in His servants. 

He is sanctified by the self-devotion of his Master 
from the world, who has a life in himself independent 
of the maxims and customs which sweep along with 
them other men. In his Master's words, " A well of 
w^ater in him, springing up into everlasting life," keep- 
ing his life, on the whole, pure, and his heart fresh. 
His true life is hid with Christ and God. His motives, 
the aims and objects of his life, however inconsistent 
they may be with each other, however irregularly or 
feebly carried out, are yet, on the whole, above, not 



260 THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST. 

here. His citizenship is in heaven. He may be 
tempted"; he may err; he may fall: but still, in his 
darkest aberrations, there will be a something that 
keeps before him still the dreams and aspirations of 
his best days ; a thought of the Cross of Christ, and 
the self-consecration that it typifies ; a conviction 
that that is the Highest, and that alone the true Life. 
And that — if it were only that — would make him 
essentially different from other men, even when he mixes 
with them, and seems to catch their tone, — among them, 
but not one of them. And that Life within him is 
Christ's pledge that he shall be yet what he longs to 
be, — a something severing him, separating him, con- 
secrating him. For him, and for such as him, the conse- 
cration prayer of Christ was made. " They are not 
of the world, even as I am not of the world : Sanctify 
them through thy Truth : Thy Word is Truth." 



XYIII. 

[Preached January 23, 1853.] 

THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

I. THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 

John ii. 11. — " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
. and manifested forth his glory ; and his disciples believed on him. ' ' 

This was the " beginning of Miracles " which Jesus 
did, and yet He was now thirty years of age. For 
thirty years He had done no miracle ; and that is, in 
itself, almost worthy to be called a miracle. That He 
abstained for thirty years from the exertion of His 
wonder-working power, is as marvellous as that He 
possessed for three years the power to exert. He was 
content to live long in deep obscurity. Nazareth, with 
its quiet valley, was world enough for Him. There 
was no disposition to rush into publicity ; no haste to 
be known in the world. The quiet consciousness of 
power which breathes in that expression, " Mine hour 
is not yet come," had marked His whole life. He 
could bide His time. He had the strength to wait. 

This was true greatness, — the greatness of man, 
because also the greatness of God ; for such is God's 
way in all He does. In all the works of God there is 
a conspicuous absence of haste and hurry. A.11 that 

. (261) 



262 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

He does ripens slowly. Six slow days and nights of 
creative force before man was made ; two thousand 
years to discipline and form a Jewish people; four 
thousand years of darkness, and ignorance, and crune, 
before the fulness of the Time had come, when He 
could send forth His Son ; unnumbered ages of war 
before the thousand years of solid peace can come. 
Whatever contradicts this Divine plan must pay the 
price of haste — brief duration. All that is done 
before the hour is come decays fast. All precocious 
things, ripened before their time, wither before their 
time — precocious fruit, precocious minds, forced feel- 
ings. " He that believeth shall not make haste." 

We shall distribute the various thoughts which this 
event suggests under two heads. 

I. The Glory of the Virgin Mother. 

H. The Glory of the Divine Son. 

I. The Glory of the Virgin Mother. 

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul 
speaks of the glory of the woman as of a thing dis- 
tinct from the glory of the man. They are the two 
opposite poles of the sphere of humanity. Their 
provinces are not the same, but different. The quali- 
ties which are beautiful as predominant in one are not 
beautiful when predominant in the other. That which 
is the glory of the one is not the glory of the other. 
The glory of her, who was highly favored among 
women, and whom all Christendom has agreed in con- 
templating as the type and ideal of her sex, was glory 
in a different order from that in which her Son exhib- 
ited the glory of a perfect manhood. A glory different 
in degree, of course : — the one was only human, the 



'^HT iJLORY OP' THE '^IRGIN MOTHER. 263 

otlier more than human — the Word made flesh. But 
different in order , too : — the one manifesting forth her 
glory, — the grace of womanhood; the other mani- 
festing forth His glory, — the Wisdom and Majesty of 
Manhood, in which God dwelt. 

Different orders or kinds of glory. Let us consider 
the glory of the Virgin, which is, in other words, the 
glory of what is womanly in character. 

Remarkable, first of all, in this respect, is her con- 
siderateness. There is gentle, womanly tact in those 
words — " They have no wine." Unselfish thoughtful- 
ness about others' comforts, not her own; delicate 
anxiety to save a straitened family from the exposure 
of their poverty ; and, moreover, — for this is very 
worthy of observation, — carefulness about gross, mate- 
rial things : a sensual thing, we might truly say, — 
wine, the instrument of intoxication ; yet see how her 
feminine tenderness transfigured and sanctified such 
gross and common things ; how that wine which, as 
used by the revellers of the banquet, might be coarse 
and sensual, was in her use sanctified, ias it was by 
unselfishness and charity, — a thing quite heavenly, 
glorified by the Ministry of- Love. 

It was so that, in old times, with thoughtful hospi- 
tality, Rebekah offered water at the well to Abraham's 
way-worn servant. It was so that Martha showed her 
devotion to her Lord even to excess, being cumbered 
with much serving. It was so that the women minis- 
tered to Christ out of their substance, — water, food, 
money. They took these low things of earth, and 
spiritualized them into means of hospitality and devo- 
tion. 

And this is the glory of womanhood, — surely no 



264 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

common glory, — surely one which, if she rightly com- 
prehended her place on earth, might enable her to 
accept its apparent humiliation unrepiningly : the 
glory of unsensualizing coarse and common things, — 
sensual things, the objects of mere sense, — meat, and 
drink, and household cares, — elevating them, by the 
spirit in which she ministers them, into something 
transfigured and sublime. 

The humblest mother of a poor family, who is cum- 
bered with much serving or watching over a hospi- 
tality which she is too poor to delegate to others, or 
toiling for lovers sake in household work, needs no 
emancipation in God's sight. It is the prerogative 
and the glory of her womanhood to consecrate the 
meanest things by a ministry which is not for 
self. 

2. Submission. 

" Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." Here is the 
true spirit of Obedience. Not slavishness, but entire 
loyalty and perfect trust in a Person whom we rever- 
ence. She did not comprehend her Son's strange 
lepulse and mysterious words ; but she knew that 
they were not capricious words, for there was no ca- 
price in Him ; she knew that the law which ruled His 
will was Right, and that importunity was useless. So 
she bade them reverently wait in silence till His time 
should come. 

Here is another distinctive glory of womanhood. 
In the very outset of the Bible, submission is revealed 
as her peculiar lot and destiny. If you were merely 
to look at the words as they stand, declaring the 
results of the Fall, you would be inclined to call that 
vocation of obedience a curse j but in the spirit of 



THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 265 

Christ it is transformed, like Labor, into a blessing. In 
this passage one peculiar blessing stands connected 
with it. 

Here a two-fold blessing is connected with it : — 
Freedom from all doubt, and prevailing power in 
prayer. 

The first is freedom from all doubt. The Virgin 
seems to have felt no perplexity at that rebuke and 
seeming refusal ; and yet, perplexity and misgiving 
would seem natural. A more masculine and imperi- 
ous mind would have been startled, made sullen, or 
begun at once to sound the depths of metaphysics, 
reasoning upon the hardship of a lot which cannot 
realize all it wishes ; wondering why such simple 
blessings are refused, pondering deeply on divine 
decrees, ending perhaps in scepticism. Mary was 
saved from this. She could not understand, but she 
could .trust and wait. Not for one moment did a 
shade of doubt rest upon her heart. At once and 
instantly, — "Whatsoever He saith unto you, doit." 
And so, too, the Syrophenician womaifwas not driven 
to speculate on the injustice of her destiny by the 
harshness of Christ's reply. She drew closer to her 
Lord in prayer. Affection and submissiveness saved 
them both from doubt, — women both. 

Now, there are whole classes of our fellow-creatures 
to whom, as a class, the anguish of religious doubt 
never, or rarely, comes. Mental doubt rarely touches 
woman. Soldiers and sailors do not doubt. Their 
religion is remarkable for its simplicity and childlike 
character. Scarcely ever are religious warriors tor- 
mented with scepticism or doubts. And in all, I 
believe for the same reason^ the habits of feeling to 

28 



266 THE FIKST MIRACLE. 

which the long life of obedience trains the soul. 
Prompt, quick, unquestioning obedience — that is the 
soil for faith. 

I call this, therefore, the glory of womanhood. It 
is the true glory, of human beings to obey. It is her 
special glory, rising out of the very weakness of her 
nature, — God's strength made perfect in weakness. 
England will not soon forget that lesson left her as the 
bequest of a great life. Her buried Hero's glory 
came out of that which was manliest in his character, 
the Virgin spirit of obedience. 

The second glory resulting from it is prevailing 
power with God. Her wish was granted. — " What 
have I to do with thee ? " were words that only 
asserted His own perfect independence. They were 
not the language of rebuke. As Messiah, He gently 
vindicated his acts from interference, showing the 
filial relation to be in its first strictness dissolved. 
But as Son He obeyed ; or, to speak more properly, 
complied. Nay, probably His look had said that 
already, promising more than His words, setting her 
mind at rest, and granting the favor she desired. 

Brethren, the subject of prayer is a deep mystery. 
To the masculine intellect it is a demonstrable absurd- 
ity. For, says logic, how can man's will modify the 
w^ill of God, or alter the fixed decree ? And if it can- 
not, where lies the use of prayer? But there is a 
something mightier than intellect, and truer than logic. 
It is the faith which works by love, — the conviction 
that, in this world of mystery, that which cannot be 
put in words, nor defended by argument, may yet be 
true. The will of Christ was fixed: what could be 



THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 267 

the use of intercession ? and yet the Virgin feeling 
was true, — her prayer would prevail. 

Here is a grand paradox, which is the paradox of 
all prayer. The heart hopes that which to reasoning 
seems impossible. And I believe we never pray 
aright except when we pray in that feminine, childlike 
spirit which no logic can defend, feeling as if we mod- 
ified the will of God, though that will is fixed. 

It is the glory of the spirit that is aifectionate and 
submissive, that it — ay, and it alone — can pray, be- 
cause it alone can believe that its prayer will be 
granted ; and it is the glory of that spirit, too, that 
its prayer will be granted. 

3dly. In all Christian ages the especial glory as- 
cribed to the Virgin Mother is purity of heart and life. 
Implied in the term " Virgin." Gradually, in the his- 
tory of the Christian church, the recognition of this 
became idolatry. The works of early Christian art 
curiously exhibit the progress of this perversion. 
They show how Mariolatry grew up. The first 
pictures of the early Christian ages simply represent 
the woman. By and by, we find outlines of the Mother 
and the Child. In an after-age, the Son is seen sitting 
on a throne, with the Mother crowned, but sitting as 
yet below Him. In an age still later, the crowned 
Mother on a level with the Son. Later still, the 
Mother on a throne above the Son. And, lastly, a 
Romish picture represents the Eternal Son, in wrath, 
about to destroy the Earth, and the Virgin Intercessor 
interposing, pleading by significant attitude ner maternal 
rights, and redeemine: the world from His vengeance. 
Such was, in fact, the progress of Virgin-worship 



268 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

First, the woman reverenced for the Son's sake : then 
the woman reverenced above the Son, and adored. 

Now, the question is. How came this to be ? for we 
assume it as a principle that no error has ever spread 
widely that was not the exaggeration or perversion 
of a truth. And be assured that the first step towards 
dislodging error is to understand the truth at which it 
aims. Never can an error be permanently destroyed 
by the roots unless we have planted by its side the 
truth that is to take its place. Else you Avill find the 
falsehood returning forever, growing up again when 
you thought it cut up root and branch, appearing in 
the very places where the crushing of it seemed most 
complete. Wherever there is a deep truth unrecog- 
nized, misunderstood, it will force its way into men's 
hearts. It will take pernicious forms, if it cannot find 
healthful ones. It will grow as some weeds grow, in 
noxious forms, ineradicably, because it has a root in 
human nature. 

Else how comes it to pass, after three hundred years 
of Reformation, we find Virgin-worship restoring itself 
again in this reformed England, where, least of all 
countries, we should expect it, and where the remem- 
brance of Romish persecution might have seemed to 
make its return impossible ? How comes it that some 
of the deepest thinkers of our day, and men of the 
saintliest lives, are feeling this "Virgin-worship a neces- 
sity for their souls ? — for it is the doctrine to which 
the converts to Romanism cling most tenaciously. 

Brethren, I reply, because the doctrine of the wor- 
ship of the Virgin has a root in truth, and no mere 
cutting and uprooting can destroy it : no Protestant 
thunders of oratory ; no platform expositions ; no Ref- 



THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 269 

ormation societies. In one word, no mere negations, 
nothing but the full liberation of the truth which lies 
at the root of error, can eradicate error. 

Surely we ought to have learnt that truth, by this 
time. Recollect how, before Christ's time, mere ne- 
gations failed to uproot paganism. Philosophers had 
disproved it by argument ; satirists had covered it 
with ridicule. It was slain a thousand times, and yet 
paganism lived on in the hearts of men ; and those 
who gave it up returned to it again in a dying hour, 
because the disprovers of it had given nothing for the 
heart to rest on in its place. But when Paul dared 
to proclaim of paganism what we are proclaiming of 
Virgin-worship, — that paganism stood upon a truth, 
and taught the truth, — paganism fell forever. The 
Apostle Paul found in Athens an altar to the Un- 
known God. He did not announce in Athens lectures 
against heathen priestcraft ; nor did he undertake to 
prove it, in the Areopagus, all a mystery of iniquity, 
and a system of damnable idolatries ; — that is the 
mode in which we set about our controversies ; — 
but he disengaged the truth from the error, — pro- 
claimed the truth, and left the errors to themselves. 
The truth grew up, and the errors silently and 
slowly withered. 

I pray you, Christian brethren, do not join those 
fierce associations which think only of uprooting 
error. There is a spirit in them which is more of 
earth than heaven, — short-sighted, too, and seli-destruc- 
tive. They do not make converts to Christ, but only 
controversialists, and adherents to a party. They 
compass sea and land. It matters little whether fierce 
Romanism or fierce Protestanism wins the day ; but 
23* 



270 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

it does matter whether or not in the conflict we lose 
some precious Christian truth, as well as the very 
spirit of Christianity. 

What lies at the root of this ineradicable Yirgin- 
worship ? How comes it that, out of so few scripture 
sentences about her, — many of them like this rebuke, 
depreciatory, — learned men and pious men could ever 
have developed, as they call it, — or, as it seems to us, 
tortured and twisted, — a doctrine of Divine honors to 
be paid to Mary ? Let us set out with the conviction 
that there must have been some reason for it, — some 
truth of which it is the perversion. 

I believe the truth to be this. Before Christ, the 
qualities honored as Divine were peculiarly the vir- 
tues of the man: Courage, Wisdom, Truth, Strength. 
But Christ proclaimed the Divine nature of qualities 
entirely opposite : Meekness, Obedience, Affection, 
Purity. He said that the pure in heart should see 
God. He pronounced the beatitudes of meekness, and 
lowliness, and poverty of spirit. Now, observe these 
were all of the order of graces which are distinctively 
feminine ; and it is the peculiar feature of Christian- 
ity, that it exalts not strength nor intellect, but gentle- 
ness, and lovingness, and Virgin purity. 

Here was a new, strange thought given to the world. 
It was for many ages the thought : no wonder, — it 
was the one great novelty of the revealed religion. 
How were men to find expression for that idea which 
was working in them, vague and beautiful, but want- 
ing substance — the idea of the Divineness of what is 
pure, above the Divineness of what is strong ? Would 
you have had them say, simply, we had forgotten these 
things ; now they are revealed, — now we know that 



THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 271 

Love and Purity are as Divine as Power and Reason ? 
My brethren, it is not so that men worship, — it is 
only so that men think. They think about qualities, — 
they Avorship persons. Worship must have a form. 
Adoration finds a Person ; and, if it cannot find one, it 
will imagine one. Gentleness and purity are words 
for a philosopher; but a man whose heart wants some- 
thing to adore will find for himself a gentle one — a 
pure one — Incarnate purity and love — gentleness 
robed in flesh and blood, before whom his knee may 
bend, and to whom the homage of his spirit can be 
given. You cannot adore except a Person. 

What marvel if the early Christian found that the 
Yirgin-mother of our Lord embodied this great idea ? 
What marvel if he filled out and expanded, with that 
idea which was in his heart, the brief sketch given of 
her in the gospels, till his imagination had robed the 
woman of the Bible with the majesty of the Mother 
of God? Can we not feel that it must have been so ? 
Instead of a dry, formal dogma of theology, the 
Romanist presented an actual woman, endued with 
every inward grace and beauty, and pierced by sor- 
rows, as a living object of devotion, faith, and hope, — 
a personality instead of an abstraction. Historically 
speaking, it seems inevitable that the idea could 
scarcely have been expressed to the world except 
through an idolatry. 

Brethren, it is an idolatry — in modern Romanism, a 
pernicious and most defiling one. The worship of 
Mary overshadows the worship of the Son. The love 
given to her is so much taken from Him. Neverthe- 
less, let us not hide from ourselves the eternal truth 
of the idea that lies beneath the temporary falsehood 



272 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

of the dogma. Overthrow the idolatry ; but do it by 
substituting the truth. 

Now, the truth alone which can supplant the wor- 
ship of the Virgin is the perfect humanity of Jesus 
Christ. I say the perfect humanity ; for perfect man- 
hood is a very ambiguous expression. By man we 
sometimes mean the human race, made up of man 
and woman, and sometimes we only mean the mascu- 
line sex. We have only one word to express both 
ideas. The language in which the New Testament 
was written has two. Hence we may make a great 
mistake. When the Bible speaks of man the human 
being, we may think that it means man the male creat- 
ure. When the Bible tells us Jesus Christ was the 
Son of Man, it uses the word which implies human 
being : it does not use the word which signifies one 
of the male sex, it does not dwell on the fact that He 
was a man, but it earnestly asserts that He was man. 
Son of a man He was not. Son of Man He was ; for 
the blood, as it were, of all the race, was in His veins. 

Now, let us see what is implied in this expression, 
Son of Man. It contains in it the doctrine of the 
Incarnation ; it means the full humanity of Christ. 
Lately I tried to bring out one portion of its meaning. 
I said that He belonged to no particular age, but to 
every age. He had not the qualities of one clime oi 
race, but that which is common to all climes and all 
races. He was not the Son of the Jew, nor the Son 
of the Oriental, — He was the Son of Man. He was 
not the villager of Bethlehem ; nor one whose charac- 
ter and mind were the result of a certain training, 
peculiar to Judea, or peculiar to that century, — but 
He was the Man. This is what St. Paul insists on, 



THE GLORY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 273 

when he says that in Him there is neither Jew nor 
Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. A Hu- 
manity in which there is nothing distinctive, limited, 
or peculiar, but universal, — your nature and mine, the 
Humanity in which we all are brothers, bond or free. 
Now, in that same passage St. Paul uses another ver;^ 
remarkable expression : " There is neither Jew noi 
Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neithei 
male nor female." That is the other thing implied in 
His title to the Son of Man. His nature had in it the 
nature of all nations ; but also His heart had in it the 
blended qualities of both sexes. Our humanity is a 
whole made up of two opposite poles of character, — 
the manly and the feminine. In the character of 
Christ neither was found exclusively, but both in 
perfect balance. He was the Son of Man — the 
human being — perfect Man. 

There was in Him the woman-heart as well as the 
manly brain, — all that was most manly, and all that 
was most womanly. Remember what He was in 
life : recollect His stern iron hardness in the tempta- 
tion of the desert ; recollect the calmness that never 
quailed in all the uproars of the people, the truth 
that never paltered, the strict severe integrity which 
characterized the Witness of the Truth ; recollect 
the justice that never gave way to weak feeling, — 
which let the rich young ruler go his way to perish 
if he would, — which paid the tribute-money, — which 
held the balance fair between the persecuted woman 
and her accuser, but did not suffer itself to be 
betrayed by sympathy into any feeble tenderness, — 
the justice that rebuked Peter with indignation, 
and pronounced the doom of Jerusalem unswerv- 



274 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

ingly. Here is one side or pole of human character; 
— surely not the feminine side. Now, look at the 
other. Recollect the twice-recorded tears, which a 
man would have been ashamed to show, and which 
are never beautiful in man except when joined with 
strength like His ; and recollect the sympathy craved 
and yearned for as well as given, — the shrinking 
from solitude in prayer, — the trembling of a sor- 
row unto death, — the considerate care which pro- 
vided bread for the multitude, and said to the tired 
disciples, as with a sister's rather than a brother's 
thoughtfulness, " Come ye apart into the desert and 
rest a while." This is the other side or pole of human 
character, — surelv not the masculine. 

When we have learnt and felt what is meant by 
Divine Humanity in Christ, and when we have 
believed it, not in a one sided way, but in all its 
fulness, then we are safe from Mariolatry ; because 
we do not want it — we have the truth which Mariol* 
atry labors to express, and, laboring ignorantly, falls 
into idolatry. But, so long as the male was looked 
upon as the only type of God, and the masculine 
virtues as the only glory of His character, so long 
the truth was yet unrevealed. This was the state 
of heathenism. And, so long as Christ was only 
felt as the Divine Man, and not the Divine Humanity, 
so long the world had only a one-sided truth. 

One-half of our nature — the sterner portion of it — 
only was felt to be of God and in God. The other 
half — the tenderer and purer qualities of our souls — 
were felt as earthly. This was the state of Roman- 
ism from which men tried to escape by Mariolatry. 
And, if men had not learned that this side of our 



THE GLOBY OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER. 275 

nature too was made Divine in Christ, Avhat possible 
escape was there for them, but to look to the Virgin 
Mary as the Incarnation of the purer and lovelier 
elements of God's character, reserving to her Son the 
sterner and the more masculine ? 

Can we not understand, too, how it came to pass that 
the Mother was placed above the Son, and adored 
more ? Christianity had proclaimed Meekness, Purity, 
Obedience, as more Divine than Strength and Wisdom. 
What wonder if she who was gazed on as the type of 
Purity should be reckoned more near to God than He 
who had come, through misconception, to be looked on 
chiefly as the type of Strength and Justice ? 

There is a spirit abroad which is leading men to 
Rome. Do not call that the spirit of the Devil. It is 
the desire and hope to find there, in its tenderness, and 
its beauty, and its devotion, a home for those feelings 
of awe, and contemplation, and love, for which our 
stern Protestantism finds no shelter. Let us acknowl- 
edge that what they worship is indeed deserving of 
all adoration ; only let us say that what they worship 
is, ignorantly, Christ. Whom they ignorantly worship 
let us declare unto them : Christ, their unknown God, 
worshipped at an idol-altar. Do not let us satisfy our- 
selves by saying, as a watchword, " Christ, not Mary : '^ 
say, rather, " In Christ all that they find in Mary." The 
Mother in the Son, the womanly in the soul of Christ. 
Divine Honor to the Feminine side of His character ; 
joyful and unvarying acknowledgment that in Christ 
there is a revelation of the Divineness of submission, 
and love, and purity, and long-suffering, just as there 
was before, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, a rev 



276 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

elation of the Divineness of courage, and strength, 
and heroism, and manliness. 

Therefore it is we do not sympathize with those 
coarse expositions which aim at doing exclusive honor 
to the Son of God by degrading the life and character 
of the Virgin. Just as the Romanist has loved to 
represent all connected with her as mysterious and 
immaculate, so has the Protestant been disposed to 
vulgarize her to the level of the commonest human- 
ity, and exaggerate into rebukes the reverent ex- 
pressions to her in which Jesus asserted His Divine 
independence. 

Rather reverence, not her, but that Idea and type 
which Christianity has given in her, — the type of 
Christian womanhood ; which was not realized in her, 
— which never was and never will be realized in one 
single woman, — which remains ever a Divine Idea, 
after which each living woman is to strive. 

And when I say reverence that Idea or type, I am but 
pointing to the relation between the Mother and the 
Son, and asking men to reverence that which He rev- 
erenced. Think we that there is no meaning hidden in 
the mystery that the Son of God was the Virgin's Son ? 
To Him through life there remained the early recollec- 
tions of a pure mother. Blessed beyond all common 
blessedness is the man who can look back to that. G od 
has given to him a talisman which will carry him tri 
umphant through many a temptation. To other men 
purity may be a name ; to him it has been once a real- 
ity. " Faith in all things high beats with his blood." He 
may be tempted ; he may err ; but there will be a light 
from home shining forever on his path inextinguish- 
ably. By the grace of God, degraded he cannot be. 



XIX. 

[Preached January 30, 1853.] 

THE FffiST MIRACLE, 
n. THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 

John ii. 11. — " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Gali- 
lee, and manifested forth his glory ; and his disciples believed on 
him." 

In the history of this miracle, two personages are 
brought prominently before our notice. One is the 
Virgin Mary ; the other is the Son of God. And these 
two exhibit different orders of glory, as well as differ- 
ent degrees. Different degrees : for the Virgin was 
only human ; her Son was God manifest in the flesh. 
Different orders of glory : for the one exhibited the 
distinctive glory of womanhood ; the Other manifested 
forth His glory J — the glory of perfect manhood. 

Taking the Virgin as the type and representative of 
her sex, we found the glory of womanhood, as ex- 
hibited by her conduct in this parable, to consist in 
unselfish considerateness about others ; in delicacy of 
tact ; in the power of ennobling a ministry of coarse 
and household things, like the wine of the marriage- 
feast, by the sanctity of affection ; in meekness and 
lowly obedience, which was in the Fall her curse, 
in Christ her glory, transformed into a blessing and a 
24 (277) 



278 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

power; and lastly, as the name Yirgin implies, the 
distinctive glory of womanhood we found to consist 
in purity. 

Now, the Christian history first revealed these great 
truths. The gospels which record the life of Christ 
first, in the history of the world, brought to light the 
Divine glory of those qualities which had been des- 
pised. Before Christ came, the heathen had counted 
for divine the legislative wisdom of the man, — manly 
strength, manly truth, manly justice, manly courage. 
The life and the Cross of Christ shed a splendor from 
heaven upon a new and till then unheard-of order of 
heroism, — that which may be called the feminine or- 
der, — meekness, endurance, long-suffering, the passive 
strength of martyrdom. For Christianity does not 
say. Honor to the Wise, but, " Blessed are the Meek." 
Not, Glory to the Strong, but, " Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God." Not, The Lord is a 
man of war, Jehovah is His name, but, " God is Love." 
In Christ, not intellect, but love, is consecrated. In 
Christ is magnified, not force of will, but the Glory of 
a Divine humility. " He was obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross ; wherefore God also hath 
highly exalted Him." 

Therefore it was, that from that time forward wom- 
anhood assumed a new place in this world. She in 
whom these qualities, for the first time declared Divine 
in Christ, were the distinctive characteristics, steadily 
and gradually rose to a higher dignity in human life. 
It is not to mere civilization, but to the Spirit of life 
in Christ, that woman owes all she has, and all she has 
yet to gain. 

Now, the outward phases in which this Redemption 



THE GLORY OP THE DIVINE SON. 279 

of the sex appeared to the world have been, as yet, 
chiefly three. There have been three ages through 
which these great truths of the Divineness of purity, 
and the strength and glory of obedience, the peculiar 
characteristics of womanhood, have been rising into 
their right acknowledgment. 1. The ages of Virgin- 
worship. 2. The ages of Chivalry. 3. The age of 
the three last centuries. Now, during the three Prot- 
estant centuries, the place and destinies of woman- 
hood have been every year rising more and more into 
great questions. Her mission, as it is called in the 
cant language of the day — what it is — that is one of 
the subjects of deepest interest in the controversies of 
the day. And, unless we are prepared to say that the 
truth, which has been growing clearer and brighter for 
eighteen centuries, shall stop now exactly where it is, 
and grow no clearer, — unless we are ready to affirm 
that mankind will never learn to pay less glory to 
strength and intellect, and more to meekness, and hum- 
bleness, and pureness, than they do now, — it follows 
that God has yet reserved for womanhood a larger and 
more glorious field for her peculiar qualities and gifts, 
and that the truth contained in the Yirgin's mother- 
hood is unexhausted still. 

For this reason, in reference to that womanhood 
and its destinies, of which St. Mary is the type, I 
thought it needful last Sunday to insist on two things, 
as of profound importance. 

First, To declare in what her true glory consists. 
The only glory of the Virgin was the glory of true 
womanhood. The glory of true womanhood consists 
in being herself; not in striving to be something else. 
It is the false paradox and heresy of this present age 



280 THE FIKST MIRACLE. 

to claim for her as a glory the right to leave her 
sphere. Her glory lies in her sphere, and God has 
given her a sphere distinct ; as in the Epistle to the 
church of Corinth, when, in that wise chapter, St. 
Paul rendered unto womanhood the things which were 
woman's, and unto manhood the things which were 
man's. 

And the true correction of that monstrous rebellion 
against what is natural lies in vindicating Mary's glory, 
on the one side, from the Romanist, who gives to her 
the glory of God ; and, on the other, from those who 
would confound the distinctive glories of the two 
sexes, and claim as the glory of woman what is, in the 
deeps of nature, the glory of the man. 

Everything is created in its own order. Every cre- 
ated thing has its own glory. " There is one glory of 
the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory 
of the stars ; for one star differ eth from another star 
in glory." There is one glory of Manhood, and an- 
other glory of Womanhood. And the glory of each 
created thing consists in being true to its own nature, 
and moving in its own sphere. 

Mary's glory was not immaculate origin, nor im- 
maculate life, nor exaltation to Divine honors. She 
had none of these things. Nor, on the other hand, 
was it Force, or demanded rights, social or domestic, 
that constituted her glory. But it was the glory of 
simple womanhood; the glory of being true to the 
nature assigned her by her Maker ; the glory of moth- 
erhood ; the glory of " a meek and quiet spirit, which 
in the sight of God is of great price." She was not 
the Queen of Heaven ; but she was something nobler 
still, a creature content to be what God had made her; 



THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 281 

in unselfishness, and humbleness, and purity, rejoicing 
h God, her Saviour, content that He had regarded the 
jowliness of His handmaiden. 

The second thing upon which I insisted was, that 
the only safeguard against the idolatrous error of 
Yirgin-worship is a full recognition of the perfect 
Humanity of Christ. A full recognition : for it is 
only a partial acknowledgment of the meaning of the 
Incarnation when we think of Him as the Divine Man. 
It was not manhood, but humanity, that was made Di- 
vine in Him. Humanity has its two sides : — one side 
in the strength and intellect of manhood ; the other 
in the tenderness, and faith, and submissiveness, of 
womanhood : Man and Woman, not man alone, make 
up human nature. In Christ, not one alone, but both, 
were glorified. Strength and Grace, Wisdom and 
Love, Courage and Purity, — Divine Manliness, Divine 
Womanliness. In all noble characters you find the 
two blended; in Him — the noblest — blended into 
one entire and perfect Humanity. 

Unless you recognize and fully utter this whole 

truth, you will find Mariolatry forever returning, cut 

it down as you will. It must come back. It will 

come back. I had well-nigh said, it ought to come 

back, unless we preach and believe the full truth of 

God incarnate in Humanity. For, while we teach in 

Dur classical schools, as the only manliness, Pagan 

jsroism of warrior and legislator, can we say that we 

Are teaching both sides of Christ? Our souls were 

:rained in boyhood to honor the heroic and the mas- 

3uline. Who ever hinted to us that charity is the 

•' more excellent way " ? Who suggested that " he 
24* 



282 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

which ruleth his spi«*it is greater than he which taketh 
a city " ? 

Again, we find our Enghsh society divided into two 
sections : One the men of business and action, exhib- 
iting prominently the masculine virtues of English 
character, truth and honor, and almost taught to reckon 
forbearance and feeling as proofs of weakness ; taught 
in the playground to believe that a chaste life is ro- 
mance — false sentiment and strengthlessness of charac- 
ter taught there ; and in after-life, that it is mean to 
forgive a personal affront. 

The other section of our society is made up of men 
of prayer and religiousness ; for some reason or other, 
singularly deficient in masculine breadth and strength, 
and even truthfulness of character ; with no firm foot- 
ing upon reality, not daring to look the real problems 
of social and political life in the face, but wasting their 
strength in disputes of words, or shrinking into a dim 
atmosphere of ecclesiastical dreaminess, unreal and 
effeminate. Dare we say that the full Humanity of 
Christ, in its double aspect, is practically adored amongst 
us ? Have we not made a fatal separation between the 
manly and the feminine of character? — between the 
moral and the devout, so that we have men who are 
masculine and moral, and also men who are effeminate 
and devout? But where are our Christian men, in 
whom the whole Christ is formed, — all that is brave, and 
true, and wise, and at the same time all that is tender, 
and devout, and pure ? Who ever taught us to adore 
m Christ all that is most manly, and all that is most 
womanly, that we might strive to be such in our degree 
ourselves ? Apd if not, can you wonder that men, feel- 



THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 283 

ing their Christianity imperfect, blindly strive to patch 
it up through Mariolotry ? 

I gather into a few sentences the substance of what 
was said last Sunday. I said that Christianity exhib- 
ited the Divine glory of the weaker elements of our 
human nature. Heathenism, nay, even Judaism, had 
as yet before Him only recognized the glory of the 
stronger and masculine. Now, the Romanist person 
ified the masculine side of human nature in Christ. 
He personified gentleness and purity, the feminine 
side of human nature, in the Virgin Mary. No won- 
der that, with this cardinal error at the outset in his 
conceptions, he adored ; and no wonder, since Chris- 
tianity declared meekness and purity more Divine 
than strength and intellect, in process of time he 
came to honor the Virgin more than Christ. That I 
believe is the true history and account of Virgin 
worship. 

The Bible personifies both sides of human nature 
the masculine and feminine of character, in Christ, oi 
whom St. Paul declares, in the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, " In him is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor 
free, male nor female." Neither distinctively , for in 
Him both the manly and the womanly of character 
divinely meet. I say, therefore, that the Incarnation 
of Grod in Christ is the true defence against Virgin- 
worship. 

Think of Christ only as the masculine character, 
glorified by the union of Godhead with it, and your 
Christianity has in it an awful gap, a void, a want, 
— the inevitable supply and relief to which will be 
Mariolatry, however secure you may think yourself, 
however strong and fierce the language you now use. 



284 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

Men who have used language as strong and fierce 
have become idolaters of Mary. With a half-thought 
of Christ, safe you are not. But think of Him as the 
Divine Human Being, in whom both sides of our 
double being are divine and glorified, and then you 
have the truth which Romanism has marred, and per- 
verted into an idolatry pernicious in all ; in the less 
spiritual worshippers sensualizing and debasing. 

Now, there are two ways of meeting error. The 
one is that in which, in humble imitation of Christ 
and His apostles, I have tried to show you the error 
of the worship of Mary, — to discern the truth out of 
which the error sprung, firmly asserting the truth, for- 
bearing threatening ; certain that he in whose mind 
the truth has lodged has in that truth the safeguard 
against error. 

The other Avay of meeting error is to overwhelm it 
with threats. To some men it seems the only way in 
which true zeal is shown. Well, it is very easy, re- 
quiring no self-control, but only an indulgence of every 
bad passion. It is very easy to call Rome the mother 
of harlots and abominations ; very easy to use strong 
language about damnable idolatries ; very easy for the 
apostles to call down fire from heaven upon the Samar- 
itans, because they would not receive Christ, and then 
to flatter themselves that that was Godly zeal. But it 
might be well for us to remember His somewhat start- 
ling comment : " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
are of." There are those who think it a surer and a safer 
Protestantism to use those popular watchwords. Be 
it so. But, with God's blessing, that will not /. The 
majesty of truth needs other bulwarks than vulgar and 
cowardly vituperation. Coarse language and violent, 



THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 285 

excusable three hundred years ago by the manners of 
that day, was bold and brave in the lips of the Re- 
formers, with whom the struggle was one of life and 
d^ath, and who might be called to pay the penalty of 
their bold defiances with their blood. But the same 
fierceness of language now, when there is no personal 
risk in the use of it, in the midst of hundreds of men 
and women ready to applaud and honor violence as 
zeal, is simply a dastardliness from which every gen- 
erous mind shrinks. You do not get the Reformers' 
spirit by putting on the armor they have done with, 
but by risking the dangers which those noble warriors 
risked. It is not their big words, but their large, 
brave heart, that makes the Protestant. 0, be sure 
that he whose soul has anchored itself to rest on the 
deep, calm sea of Truth, does not spend his strength 
in raving against those who are still tossed by the 
winds of error. Spasmodic violence of words is one 
thing, strength of conviction is another. 

When, 0, when shall we learn that loyalty to Christ 
is tested far more by the strength of our Sympathy 
with Truth than by the intensity of our hatred of error ! 
I will tell you what to hate. Hate Hypocrisy; hate 
Cant ; hate intolerance, oppression, injustice ; hate 
Pharisaism ; — hate them as Christ hated them, with a 
deep, living. Godlike hatred. But do not hate men in 
intellectual error. To hate a man for his errors is as 
unwise as to hate one who, in casting up an account, 
has made an error against himself The Romanist has 
made an error against himself. He has missed the full 
glory of his Lord and Master. Well, shall we hate 
him, and curse, and rant, and thunder at him? Or 
shall we sit down beside him, and try to sympathize 



286 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

with him, and see things from his point of view, and 
strive to understand the truth which his soul is aiming 
at, and seize the truth for him and for ourselves, 
" meekly instructing those who oppose themselves " '/ 

Our subject to-day is the glory of the Divine Son. 

In that miracle, " He manifested forth His glory." 
Concerning that glory we say : 

1. The glory of Christ did not begin with that mira- 
cle ; the miracle only manifested it. For thirty years 
the wonder-working power had been in Him. It was 
not Diviner power when it broke forth into visible 
manifestation, than it had been when it was unsus- 
pected and unseen. It had been exercised up to this 
time in common acts of youthful life — obedience to his 
mother, love to his brethren. Well, it was just as 
Divine in those simple, daily acts, as when it showed 
itself in a way startling and wonderful. It was just as 
much the life of God on Earth when He did an act of 
ordinary human love or human duty, as when He did 
an extraordinary act, such as turning water into wine. 
God was as much, nay, more, in the daily life and love 
of Christ, than He was in Christ's miracles. The mira- 
cle only made the hidden glory visible. The extraor- 
dinary only proved that the ordinary was Divine. 
That was the very object of the miracle. It was done 
to manifest forth His glory. And if, instead of rousing 
men to see the real glory of Christ in His other life, 
the miracle merely fastened men's attention on itself, 
and made them think that the only Glory which is 
Divine is to be found in what is wonderful and un- 
common, then the whole intention of the miracle was 
lost. 

Let us make this more plain by an illustration. To 



THE GLORY OP THE DIVINE SON. 287 

the wise man, the lightning only manifests the electric 
force which is everywhere, and which for one moment 
has become visible. As often as he sees it, it reminds 
him that the lightning slumbers invisibly in the dew- 
drop, and in the mist, and in the cloud, and binds 
together every atom of the water that he uses in daily 
life. But to the vulgar mind the lightning is some- 
thing unique, a something which has no existence but 
when it appears. There is a fearful glory in the light- 
ning, because he sees it. But there is no startling 
glory and nothing fearful in the drop of dew, because 
he does not know, what the Thinker knows, that the 
flash is there in all its terrors. 

So, in the same way, to the half-believer a miracle 
is the one solitary evidence of God. Without it he 
could have no certainty of God's existence. 

But to the true disciple a miracle only manifests the 
Power and Love which are silently at work every- 
where, — as truly and as really in the slow work of 
the cure of the insane, as in the sudden expulsion of 
the legion from the demoniac, — as divinely in the gift 
of daily bread, as in the miraculous multiplication of 
the loaves. God's glory is at work in the growth of 
the vine, and the ripening of the grape, and the process 
by which grape-juice passes into wine. It is not more 
glory, but only glory more manifested, when water at His 
bidding passes into wine. And be sure that if you do 
not feel, as David felt, God's presence in the annual 
miracle, — that it is God, which in the vintage of every 
year causeth wine to make glad the heart of man, — the 
sudden miracle at Capernaum would not have given 
you conviction of His presence. " If you hear not 
Moses and the prophets, neither will you be persuaded 



288 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

though one rose from the dead." Miracles have only 
done their work when they teach us the glory and the 
awfulness that surrounds our common life. In a mira- 
cle, God for one moment shows Himself, that we may 
remember it is He that is at work when no miracle is 
seen. 

Now, this is the deep truth of miracles, which most 
men miss. They believe that the life of Jesus was 
Divine, because He wrought miracles. But, if their 
faith in miracles were shaken, their faith in Christ 
would go. If the evidence for the credibility of those 
miracles were weakened, then to them the mystic 
glory would have faded off His history. They could 
not be sure that His Existence was Divine. That 
love, even unto death, would bear no certain stamp of 
God upon it. That life of long self-sacrifice would 
have had in it no certain unquestionable traces of the 
Son of God. See what that implies. If that be true, 
and miracles are the best proof of Christ's mission, 
God can be recognized in what is marvellous — God 
cannot be recognized in what is good. It is by Divine 
power that a human being turns water into wine. It 
is by power less certainly Divine that the same being 
witnesses to truth — forgives His enemies - — makes it 
His meat and drink to do His Father's will, and finishes 
His work. We are more sure that God was in Christ 
when He said, " Rise up, and walk," than when He 
said, with absolving love, " Son, thy sins be forgiven 
thee ; " more certain when He furnished wine for wed- 
ding guests, than Avhen He said, " Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." 0, a strange, 
and low, and vulgar appreciation this of the true glory 
of the Son of God, the same false conception that runs 



THE GLORY OF. THE DIVINE SON. 289 

through all our life, appearing in every form, — God in 
the storm, and the earthquake, and the fire, — no God 
in the still small voice. Glory in the lightning-flash, — • 
no glory and no God in the lowliness of the dew-drop. 
Glory to intellect and genius, — no glory to gentleness 
and patience. Glory to every kind of power, — none 
to the inward, invisible strength of the life of God in 
the soul of man. 

" An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after 
a sign." Look at the feverish eagerness with which 
men crowd to every exhibition of some newly discov- 
ered Force, real or pretended. What lies at the bottom 
of this feverishness but an unbelieving craving after 
signs? — some wonder which is to show them the Divine 
Life, of which the evidence is yet imperfect? As if 
the bread they eat and the wine they drink, chosen by 
God for the emblems of his sacraments because the 
commonest things of daily life, were not filled with the 
Presence of His love ; as if God were not around their 
path, and beside their bed, and spying out all their 
daily ways. 

It is in this strange way that we have learned Christ. 
The miracles which were meant to point us to the 
Divinity of His Goodness have only dazzled us with 
the splendor of their Power. We have forgotten what 
His first wonder-work shows, that a miracle is only 
manifested glory. 

2. It was the glory of Christ again to sanctify, that 
is, declare the sacredness of all things natural. All 
natural relationships, — all natural enjoyments. 

All natural relationships. What He sanctified by 
His presence was a marriage. Now, remember what 
had gone before this. The life of John the Baptist 
26 



290 THE FIRST JtflRACLE. 

was the highest form of religious life known in Israel. 
It was the life ascetic. It was the life of solitariness 
and penitential austerity. He drank no wine ; he ate 
no pleasant food ; he married no wife ; he entered into 
no human relationship. It was the law of that stern 
an<I in its way sublime life, to cut out every human 
feeling as a weakness, and to mortify every natural 
instinct, in order to cultivate an intenser spirituality. 
A life in its own order grand, but indisputably unnatu- 
ral. 

Now, the first public act of our Redeemer's life is to 
go with with His disciples to a marriage. He conse- 
crates marriage, and the sympathies which lead to 
marriage. He declares the sacredness of feelings 
which had been reckoned carnal, and low, and human. 
He stamps His image on human joys, human connec- 
tions, human relationships. He pronounces that they 
are more than human, — as it were, sacramental ; the 
means whereby God's presence comes to us ; the types 
and shadows whereby higher and deeper relationships 
become possible to us. For it is through our human 
affections that the soul first learns to feel that its des- 
tiny is Divine. It is through a mortal yearning, unsat- 
isfied, that the spirit ascends, seeking a higher object. 
It is through the gush of our human tendernesses that 
the Immortal and the Infinite in us reveals itself. 
Never does a man know the force that is in him till 
some mighty affection or grief has humanized the soul. 
It is by an earthly relationship that God has tj^pified 
to us and helped us to conceive the only true Espousal, 
— the marriage of the soul to her Eternal Lord. 

It was the glory of Christianity to pronounce all 
these liuman feelings sacred ; therefore it is that the 



THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 291 

Churcli asserts their sacredness in a religious cere- 
mony ; for example, that of marriage. Do not mistake. 
It is not the ceremony that makes a thing religious ; a 
ceremony can only declare a thing reh"gious. The 
church cannot make sacred that which is not sacred. 
She is but here on earth as the moon, the witness of 
the light in heaven — by her ceremonies and by her 
institutions, to bear witness to eternal truths. She 
cannot by her manipulations manufacture a child of 
the devil, through baptism, into a child of God ; she 
can only authoritatively declare the sublime truth, — he 
is not the devil's child, but God's child, by right. She 
cannot make the bond of marriage sacred and indisso- 
luble ; she can only witness to the sacredness of that 
which the union of two spirits has already made ; and 
such are her own words. Her minister is commanded 
by her to say, *' Forasmuch as these two persons 
have consented together ^^ — there is the sacred Fact of 
Nature; — "I pronounce that they be man and wife,'' 
— here is the authoritative witness to the fact. 

Again, it was His glory to declare the sacredness of 
all natural enjoyments. 

It was not a marriage only, but a marriage;/eas^, to 
which Christ conducted His disciples. Now, we can- 
not get over this plain fact, by saying that it was a 
religious ceremony ; that w^ould be mere sophistry. 
It was an indulgence in the festivity of life ; as plainly 
as words can describe, here was a banquet of human 
enjoyment. The very language of the master of the 
feast about men who had well drunk tells us that 
there had been, not excess, of course, but happiness 
there, and merry-making. 

Neither can we explain away the lesson by saying 



292 THE FIRST MIRACLE. 

that it is no example to us; for Christ was there to do 
good, and that what was safe for Him might be unsafe 
for Tis. For if His hfe is no pattern for us here in 
this case of accepting an invitation, in what can we be 
sUTe it is a pattern ? Besides, He took His disciples 
there, and His mother was there ; they were not 
shielded, as He was, by immaculate purity. He was 
there as a guest at first, as Messiah only afterwards ; 
thereby He declared the sacredness of natural enjoy- 
ments. 

Here again, then, Christ manifested His peculiar 
glory. The Temptation of the Wilderness was past ; 
the baptism of John, and the life of abstinence to 
which it introduced, were over ; and now the Bride- 
groom comes before the world in the true glory of 
Messiah, — not in the life of asceticism, but in the 
life of Godliness, — not separating from life, but 
consecrating it ; carrying a Divine spirit into every 
simplest act, — accepting an invitation to a feast 
— giving to water the virtue of a nobler beverage. 
For Christianity does not destroy what is natural, but 
ennobles it. To turn water into wine, and what is 
common into what is holy, is indeed the glory of 
Christianity. 

The ascetic life of abstinence, of fasting, austerity, 
singularity, is the lower and earthlier form of religion. 
The life of Godliness is the glory of Christ. It is a 
thing far more striking to the vulgar imagination to 
be religious after the type and pattern of John the 
Baptist, — to fast, to mortify every inclination, to be 
found at no feast, to wrap ourselves in solitariness, 
and abstain from all social joys ; yes, and far easier so 
to live, and far easier so to win a character for reli- 



THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON. 293 

giousness. A silent man is easily reputed wise. A 
man who suffers none to see him in the common jostle 
and undress of life easily gathers round him a myste- 
rious veil of unknown sanctity, and men honor him 
for a saint. The unknown is always wonderful. But 
the life of Him whom men called a gluttonous man 
and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, 
was a ftir harder and a far heavenlier religion. To 
shroud ourselves in no false mist of holiness : to dare 
to show ourselves as we are, making no solemn affec- 
tation of reserve or difference from others ; to be 
found at the marriage-feast ; to accept the invitation 
of the rich Pharisee Simon, and the scorned publican 
Zaccheus ; to mix with the crowd of men, using no 
affected singularity, content to be creatures not too 
bright or good for human nature's daily food : and yet 
for a man amidst it all to remain a consecrated spirit. 
His trials and His solitariness known only to His 
Father ; a being set apart, not of this world, alone in 
the heart's deeps with God ; to put the cup of this 
world's gladness to His lips, and yet be unintoxicated : 
to gaze steadily on all its grandeur, and yet be undaz- 
zled, plain and simple in personal desires ; to feel its 
brightness, and yet defy its thrall ; — this is the diffi- 
cult, and rare, and glorious life of God in the soul 
of Man. This, this was the peculiar glory of the life 
of Christ, which was manifested in that first miracle 
which Jesus wrought at the marriage-feast in Cana of 

Galilee. 

25* 



XX. 

[Preached March 20, 1853.] 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

John x. 14, 15. — "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and 
am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the 
Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." 

As these words stand in the English translation, it 
is hard to see any connection between the thoughts 
that are brought together. 

It is asserted that Christ is the good Shepherd, and 
knows His sheep. It is also asserted that He knows 
the Father ; but between these two truths there is no 
express connection. And, again, it is declared that 
He lays down His life for the sheep. This follows 
directly after the assertion that He knows the Father. 
Again, we are at a loss to say what one of these truths 
has to do with the other. 

But the whole difficulty vanishes with the alteration 
of a single stop and a single word. Let the words 
" even so " be exchanged for the word " and." Four 
times in these verses the same word occurs. Three 
times out of these four it is translated " and," — and 
know my sheep, and am known, and I lay down my 
life. All that is required, then, is, that, in consistency, 

(294) 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 295 

it shall be translated by the same word in the fourth 
case ; for " even so " substitute '^ and ; " then strike 
away the full stop after "mine," and read the whole 
sentence thus : " I am the good shepherd, and know 
my sheep, and am known of mine as the Father know- 
eth me, and as I know the Father ; and I lay down my 
life for the sheep." 

At once our Redeemer's thought becomes clear. 
There is a reciprocal affection between the Shepherd 
and the sheep. There is a reciprocal affection between 
the Father and the Son ; and the one is the parallel of 
the other. The affection between the Divine Shepherd 
and His j3ock can be compared, for the closeness of its 
intimacy, with nothing but the affection between the 
Eternal Father and the Son of His love. As the Fa- 
ther knows the Son, so does the Shepherd know the 
sheep ; as the Son knows the Father, so do the sheep 
mow their heavenly Shepherd. 

I. The pastoral character claimed by Christ. 

II. The proofs which substantiate the claim. 

I. The Son of Man claims to Himself the name of 
Shepherd. 

Now, we shall not learn anything from that, unless 
we enter humbly and affectionately into the spirit of 
Ohrist's teaching. It is the heart alone which can give 
IS a key to His words. Recollect how he taught. By 
netaphors, by images, by illustrations, boldly figura- 
ive, in rich variety, — yes, in daring abundance. He 
tails Himself a gate, a king, a vine, a shepherd, a thief 
fi the night. In every one of these He appeals to 
•ertain feelings and associations. What He says can 
mly be interpreted by such associations. They must' 



296 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

be understood by a living heart ; a cold, clear intellect 
will make nothing of them. If you take those glorious 
expressions, pregnant with almost boundless thought, 
and lay them down as so many articles of rigid, stiff 
theology, you turn life into death. It is just as if a 
chemist were to analyze a fruit or a flower, and then 
imagine that he had told you what a fruit and a flower 
are. He separates them into their elements, names 
them, and numbers them ; but those elements, weighed, 
measured, numbered in the exact proportions that 
made up the beautiful living thing, are not the living 
thing, — no, nor anything like it. Your science is very 
profound, no doubt ; but the fruit is crushed, and the 
grace of the flower is gone. 

It is in this way often that we deal with the words 
of Christ, when we anatomize them and analyze them. 
Theology is very necessary, chemistry is very neces- 
sary ; but chemistry destroys life to analyze, murders 
to dissect; and theology very often kills religion out 
of words, before it can cut them up into propositions. 

Here is a living truth, which our cold reasonings 
have often torn into dead fragments, — " I am the good 
Shepherd." In this northern England, it is hard to get 
the living associations of the East, with which such an 
expression is full. 

The pastoral life and duty in the East is very unlike 
that of the shepherds on our bleak hill-sides and 
downs. Here the connection between the shepherd 
and the sheep is simply one of pecuniary interest. 
Ask an English shepherd about his flock, — he can tell 
you the numbers and the value ; he knows the market 
in which each was purchased, and the remunerating 
price at which it can be disposed of There is be- 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 297 

fore him so much stock, convertible into so much 
money. 

Beneath the burning skies and the clear starry nights 
of Palestine, there grows up between the shepherd and 
his flock an union of attachment and tenderness. It 
is the country where, at any moment, sheep are liable 
to be swept away by some mountain-torrent, or carried 
ojff by hill-robbers, or torn by wolves. At any moment 
their protector may have to save them by personal 
hazard. The shepherd-king tells us how, in defence 
of his father's flock, he slew a lion and a bear ; and 
Jacob reminds Laban how, when he watched Laban's 
sheep, in the day the drought consumed. Every hour 
of the shepherd's life is risk. Sometimes, for the sake 
of an armful of grass in the parched summer days, he 
must climb precipices almost perpendicular, and stand 
on a narrow ledge of rock, where the wild goat will 
scarcely venture. Pitiless showers, driving snows, 
long hours of thirst, — all this he must endure, if the 
flock is to be kept at all. 

And thus there grows up, between the man and the 
dumb creatures he protects, a kind of friendship. For 
this is, after all, the true school in which love is taught, 
dangers mutually shared, and hardships borne together; 
these are the things which make generous friendship, 
— risk cheerfully encountered for another's sake. You 
love those for whom you risk, and they love you ; 
therefore it is that, not as here, where the flock is 
driven, the shepherd goes before, and the sheep follow 
him. They follow in perfect trust, even though he 
should be leading them away from a green pasture, by 
a rocky road, to another pasture, which they cannot 



298 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

yet see. He knows them all, — their separate histo- 
ries, their ailments, their characters. 

Now, let it be observed, how much in all this con- 
nection there is of heart, — of real, personal attach- 
ment, almost inconceivable to ns. It is strange how 
deep the sympathy may become between the higher and 
the lower being ; nay, even between the being that has 
life and what is lifeless. Alone almost in the desert, 
the Arab and his horse are one family. Alone in those 
vast solitudes, with no human being near, the shepherd 
and the sheep feel a life in common. Differences dis- 
appear, the vast interval between the man and the 
brute — the single point of union is felt strongly. 
One is the love of the protector, the other the love of 
the grateful life ; and so, between lives so distant, there 
is woven by night and day, by summer suns and winter 
frosts, a living net-work of sympath}^ The greater 
and the less mingle their being together — they feel 
each other. — "The shepherd knows his sheep, and is 
known of them." 

The men to whom Christ said these words felt all 
this and more, the moment He had said them, which it 
has taken me many minutes to draw out in dull sen- 
tences ; for He appealed to the familiar associations 
of their daily life, and, calling Himself a Shepherd, 
touched strings which would vibrate with many a 
tender and pure recollection of their childhood. And 
unless we try, by realizing such scenes, to supply 
what they felt by association, the words of Christ 
will be only hard, dry, lifeless words to us ; for all 
Christ's teaching is a Divine Poetry, luxuriant in 
metaphor, overflowing with truth too large for accu- 
rate sentences — truth which only a heart alive can 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 299 

appreciate. More than half the heresies into which 
Christian sects have blundered have merely come 
from mistaking for dull prose what prophets and 
apostles said in those highest moments of the soul, 
when seraphim kindle the sentences of the pen and 
lip into poetry. '' This is my body.'' — Chill that into 
prose, and it becomes Transubstantiation. " I am the 
Good Shepherd." — In the dry and merciless logic of 
a commentary, trying laboriously to find out minute 
points of ingenious resemblance in which Christ is 
like a shepherd, the glory and the tenderness of this 
sentence are dried up. 

But try to feel, by imagining what the lonely Syrian 
shepherd must feel towards the helpless things which 
are the companions of his daily life, for whose safety 
he stands in jeopardy every hour, and whose value is 
measurable to him not by price, but by his own 
jeopardy, and then we have reached some notion of 
the love which Jesus meant to represent : that Eternal 
tenderness which bends over us, — infinitely lower 
though we be in nature, — and know^s the name of 
each and the trials of each, and thinks for each with a 
separate solicitude, and gave itself for each with a 
sacrifice as special, and a love as personal, as if in the 
whole world's wilderness there were none other but 
that one. 

To the name Shepherd Christ adds an emphatic 
word, of much significance : " I am the' Good Shep- 
herd." Good, not in the sense of benevolent, but in 
the sense of genuine, true-born, of the real kind, — 
just as wine of nobler quality is good compared with 
the cheaper sort ; just as a soldier is good or noble 
who is a soldier in heart, and not a soldier by mere 



300 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

profession or for pay. It is the same word used by St. 
Paul when he speaks of a good — that is, a noble — 
soldier of Christ. Certain peculiar qualifications make 
the genuine soldier ; certain peculiar qualifications 
make the genuine or good shepherd. 

Now, this expression distinguishes the shepherd 
from two sorts of men who may also be keepers of the 
sheep : shepherds, but not shepherds of the true 
blood. 1. From robbers. 2. From hirelings. 

1. Robbers may turn shepherds ; they may keep the 
sheep, but they guard them only for their own pur- 
poses — simply for the flesh and fleece; they have 
not a true shepherd's heart, any more than a pirate has 
the true sailor's heart and the true sailor's loyalty. 
There were many such marauders on the hills of Gali- 
lee and Judea ; such, for example, as those from whom 
David and his band protected Nabal's flocks on 
Mount Carmel. 

And many such nominal shepherds had the people 
of Israel had in bygone years ; rulers in whom the art 
of ruling had been but king-craft ; teachers whose 
instructions to the people had been but priestcraft. 
Government, statesmanship, teachership, — these are 
pastoral callings— ^ sublime, even Godlike. For only 
consider it: wise rule, chivalrous protection, loving 
guidance, — what diviner work than these has the 
Master given to the shepherds of the people ? But 
when the w^ork is done, even well done, whether it be 
by statesmen or by pastors, for the sake of party, or 
place, or honor, or personal consistency, or preferment, 
it is not the spirit of the genuine shepherd, but of 
the robber. No wonder He said, " All that ever came 
before Me were thieves and robbers.'^ 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 301 

Again, hirelings are shepherds, but not good shep- 
herds, of the right, pure kind; they are tested by 
danger. " He that is an hireling, and not the good 
shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf 
coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth ; and the 
wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." 

Now, a man is a hireling when he does his duty for 
pay. He may do it in his way faithfully. The paid 
shepherd would not desert the sheep for a shower or 
a cold night. But the lion and the bear — he is not 
paid to risk his life against them, and the sheep are 
not his, so he leaves them to their fate. So, in the 
same way, a man may be a hired priest, as Demetrius 
was at Ephesus : " By this craft we get our living." 
Or, a paid demagogue, a great champion of rights, 
and an investigator of abuses — paid by applause ; 
and while popularity lasts, he will be a reformer, — 
deserting the people when danger comes. There is 
no vital union between the champion and defenceless, 
the teacher and the taught. The cause of the sheep 
is not his cause. 

Exactly the reverse of this Christ asserts, in calling 
Himself the Good Shepherd. He is a good, genuine, 
or true-born sailor who feels that the ship is as it were 
his own ; whose point of chivalrous honor is to save 
his ship rather than himself — not to survive her. He 
is a good, genuine, or true-born shepherd who has the 
spirit of his calling — is an enthusiast in it — has the 
true shepherd's heart, and makes the cause of the 
sheep his cause. 

Brethren, the cause of man was the cause of Christ. 
He did no hireling's work. The only pay He got was 
hatred, a crown of thorns, and the cross. He might 

20 



302 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

have escaped it all. He might have been the Leader 
of the people and their King. He might have con- 
verted the idolatry of an hour into the hosannas of a 
lifetime. If He would but have conciliated the Phari- 
sees, instead of bidding them defiance, and exasper- 
ating their bigotry against Him ; if He would but have 
explained, and, like some demagogue called to account, 
trimmed away His sublime sharp-edged truths about 
oppression and injustice until they became harmless, 
because meaningless ; if He would but have left unsaid 
those rough things about the consecrated Temple and 
the Sabbath-days ; if He would but have left undis- 
puted the hereditary title of Israel to God's favor, and 
not stung the national vanity by telling them that trust 
in God justifies the Gentile as entirely as the Jew ; if 
He would but have taught less prominently that hate- 
ful doctrine of the salvability of the heathen Gentiles 
and the heretic Samaritans, and the universal Father- 
hood of God ; if He would but have stated with less 
angularity of edge His central truth, that not by mere 
compliance with law, but by a spirit transcending law, 
even the spirit of the cross and self-sacrifice, can the 
soul of man be atoned to God: — that would have 
saved Him. But that w^ould have been the desertion 
of the cause — God's cause and man's — the cause 
of the ignorant defenceless sheep, whose very salva- 
tion depended on the keeping of that Gospel intact ; 
therefore the Shepherd gave His life a Witness to the 
Truth, and a sacrifice to God. It was a profound 
truth that the populace gave utterance to when they 
taunted Him on the cross: "He saved others, Him- 
self He cannot save." No, of course not; He that 
will save others cannot save Himself. 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 303 

Of that pastoral character He gives here three 
proofs. I know My sheep — am known of Mine — lay 
down My life for the sheep. 

1. I know My sheep as the Father knoweth Me. In 
other words, as unerringly as His Father read His 
heart, so unerringly did He read the heart of man and 
recognize His own. 

Ask we how ? An easy reply, and a common one, 
would be — He recognized them by the Godhead in 
Him; His mind was divine, therefore omniscient; He 
knew all things, therefore He knew what was in man ; 
and therefore He knew His own. 

But we must not slur over His precious words in 
this way. That Divinity of His is made the pass-key 
by which we open all mysteries with fatal facility, and 
save ourselves from thinking of them. We get a 
dogma and cover truth with it ; we satisfy ourselves 
with saying Christ was God, and lose the precious 
humanities of His heart and life. 

There is here a deep truth of human nature ; for He 
does not limit that recognizing power to Himself, — 
He says that the sheep know Him as truly as He the 
sheep. He knew men on the same principle on which 
we know men, — the same on which we know Him. 
The only difference is in degree ; He knows with infi- 
nitely more unerringness than we, but the knowledge 
is the same in kind. 

Let us think of this. There is a certain mysterious 
tact of sympathy and antipathy by which we discover 
the like and unlike of ourselves in others' character. 
You cannot find out a man's opinions unless he 
chooses to express them ; but his feelings and hia 



304 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

character you may. He cannot hide them; yuu feel 
them in his look and mien, and tones and motion. 

There is, for instance, a certain something in sin- 
cerity and reality which cannot be mistaken, — a 
certain something in real grief which the most artistic 
counterfeit cannot imitate. It is distinguished by 
nature, not education. There is a something in an 
impure heart which purity detects afar off. Marvel- 
lous it is how innocence perceives the approach of 
evil which it cannot know by experience, just as the 
dove which has never seen a falcon trembles by 
instinct at its approach ; just as a blind man detects 
by finer sensitiveness the passing of the cloud which 
he cannot see overshadowing the sun. It is wondrous 
how, the truer we become, the more unerringly we 
know the ring of truth, — discern whether a man be true 
or not, and can fasten at once upon the rising lie in 
word, and look, and dissembling act. Wondrous how 
the charity of Christ in the heart finely perceives the 
slightest aberration from charity in others, in ungentle 
thought or slanderous tone. 

Therefore Christ knew His sheep, by that mystic 
power always finest in the best natures, most devel- 
oped in the highest, by which Like detects what is 
like and what unlike itself. He was Perfect Love — 
Perfect Truth — Perfect Purity; therefore He knew 
what was in man, and felt, as by another sense, afar 
off the shadows of unlovingness, and falseness, and 
impurity. 

No one can have read the Gospels without remark- 
ing that they ascribe to Him unerring skill in reading 
man. People, we read, began to show enthusiasm for 
Him. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them-, 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 305 

'' for He knew what was in man." He knew that the 
flatterers of to-day would be the accusers of to-mor- 
row. Nathanael stood before Him. He had scarcely 
spoken a word ; but at once, unhesitatingly, to Nathan- 
aePs own astonishment, — " Behold an Israelite in- 
deed, in whom there is no guile ! " There came to 
Him a young man with vast possessions : a single 
sentence, an exaggerated epithet, an excited manner, 
revealed his character. Enthusiastic and amiable, 
Jesus loved him ; capable of obedience, on life's sun- 
shine and prosperity, — ay, and capable of aspiration 
after something more than mere obedience, but not 
of sacrifice. Jesus tested him to the quick, and the 
young man failed. He did not try to call him back, 
for He knew what was in him and what was not. He 
read through Zaccheus when he climbed into the syc- 
amore-tree, despised by the people as a publican, really 
a son of Abraham ; through Judas, with his benevo- 
lent saying about the selling of the alabaster-box for 
the poor, and his false kiss ; through the curses of the 
thief upon the cross, a faith that could be saved ; 
through the zeal of the man who in a fit of enthu- 
siasm ofi'ered to go with Him whithersoever He 
would. He read through the Pharisees, and His 
whole being shuddered with the recoil of utter and 
irreconcilable aversion. 

It was as if His bosom was some mysterious mir- 
ror, on which all that came near Him left a sullied 
or unsullied surface, detecting themselves by every 
breath. 

Now, distinguish that Divine power from that cun- 
ning sagacity which men call knowingness in the mat- 
ter of character. The worldly wise have maxims and 

26* 



306 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

rules ; but the finer shades and delicacies of truth of 
character escape them. They would prudently avoid 
Zaccheus — a publican ; they 

There is a very solemn aspect in which this power 
of Jesus to know man presents itself. It is this which 
qualifies Him for judgment, — this perfection of hu- 
man sympathy. Perfect sympathy with every most 
delicate line of good implies exquisite antipathy to 
every shadow of a shade of evil. God hath given 
Him authority to execute judgment also, because He 
is the Son of Man. On sympathy the final award of 
Heaven and Hell are built : Attraction and Repulsion, 
the law of the magnet. To each pole all that has affin- 
ity with itself — to Christ all that is Christlike, from 
Christ all that is not Christlike, — forever and forever. 
Eternal judgment is nothing more than the carrying 
out of these words, " I know my sheep ; " — for the 
obverse of them is, " I never knew you ; depart from 
me, all ye that work iniquity." 

The second proof which Christ alleges of the genu- 
ineness of His pastorate is, that His sheep know Him. 

How shall we recognize Truth Divine? What is 
the test by which we shall knOw whether it comes 
from God or not? They tell us we know Christ to 
be from God because He wrought miracles ; we know 
a doctrine to be from God because we find it written, 
or because it is sustained by an universal consent of 
fathers. 

That is — for observe what this argument implies — 
there is something more evident than truth; Truth 
cannot prove itself; we want something else to prove 
it. Our souls judge of truth, — our senses judge of 
miracles: and the evidence of our senses — the lowest 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 307 

part of our nature — is more certain than the evi- 
dence of our souls, by which we must partake of God. 

Now, to say so, is to say that you cannot be sure 
that it is mid-day, or morning sunshine, unless you 
look at the sun-dial ; you cannot be sure that the sun 
is shining in the heavens unless you see his shadow 
on the dial-plate. The dial is valuable to a man who 
never reads the heavens, — the shadow is good for 
him who has not watched the sun ; but, for a man who 
lives in perpetual contemplation of the sun in heaven, 
the sunshine needs no evidence, and every hour is 
known. 

Now, Christ says, " My sheep know 3Ie.^^ Wisdom 
is justified by her children. Not by some length- 
ened investigation, whether the shepherd's dress be 
the identical dress, and the staff and the crosier gen- 
uine, do the sheep recognize the shepherd. They 
know him, they hear his voice, they know him as a 
man knows his friend. 

They know him, in short, instinctively. Just so does 
the soul recognize what is of God and true. Truth is 
like light; visible in itself, not distinguished by the 
shadows that it casts. There is a something in our 
souls of God, which corresponds with what is of God 
outside us, and recognizes it by direct intuition ; some- 
thing in the true soul which corresponds with truth, 
and knows it to be truth. Christ came with truth, and 
the true recognize it as true ; the sheep know the 
Shepherd, wanting no further evidence. Take a few 
examples : " God is Love." — " What shall a man give 
in exchange for his soul ? " — " He that saveth his life 
shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life for My sake 
shall find it." — " All things are possible to him that 



308 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

believeth." — " The Sabbath was made for man, not man 
for the Sabbath."—" God is a Spirit." 

Now, the wise men of intellect and logical acumen 
wanted proof of these truths. Give us, said they, 
your credentials. " By what authority doest thou 
these things ? " They wanted a sign from heaven to 
prove that the truth was true, and the life He led 
Godlike, and not devil-like. How can we be sure that 
it is not from Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, that 
these deeds and sayings come? We must be quite 
sure that we are not taking a message from hell as 
one from heaven. Give us demonstration, — chains of 
evidence, chapter and verse, authority. 

But simple men had decided the matter already. 
They knew very little of antiquity, church authority, 
and shadows of coming events, which prophecy casts 
before ; but their eyes saw the light, and their hearts 
felt the present God. Wise Pharisees and learned 
doctors said, to account for a wondrous miracle, " Give 
God the glory." 

But the poor, unlettered man, whose blinded eye 
had for the first time looked on a face of love, replied, 
" Whether this man be a sinner or not, I know not ; 
one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now 
I see." 

The well-read Jews could not settle the literary 
question, whether the marks of his appearance coin- 
cided with the prophecies. But the Samaritans fdi 
the life of God : " Now we believe, not because of thy 
word, but because we have heard him ourselves, and 
hnow that this is indeed the Christ." 

The Shepherd had come, and the sheep knew His 
voice. 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 309 

Brethren, in all matters of eternal truth, the soul 18 
before the intellect, the things of God are spiritually 
discerned. You know truth by being true ; you rec- 
ognize God by being like Him. The scribe comes 
and says, I will prove to you that this is sound doc- 
trine, by chapter and verse, by what the old and best 
writers say, by evidence such as convinces the intel- 
lect of an intelligent lawyer or juryman. Think you 
the conviction of faith is got in that way ? 

Christ did not teach like the scribes. He spoke His 
truth. He said, " If any man believe not, I judge him 
not ; the word which I have spoken, the same shall 
judge him in the last day." It was true, and the guilt 
of disbelieving it was not an error of the intellect, but 
a sin of the heart. 

Let us stand upright ; let us be sure that the test of 
truth is the soul within us. Not at second-hand can 
we have assurance of what is Divine, and what is 
not ; only at first-hand. The sheep of Christ hear His 
voice. 

The third proof given by Christ was pastoral fidel- 
ity : " I lay down my life for the sheep." Now, here 
is the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice ; sacrifice of one 
instead of another ; life saved by the sacrifice of life. 

Most of us know the meagre explanation of these 
words which satisfies the Unitarians ; they say that 
Christ merely died as a martyr, in attestation of the 
truths He taught. 

But you will observe the strength of the expression 
which we cannot explain away, " I lay down my life 
/or" — that is, instead of — "the sheep." If the Shep- 
herd had not sacrificed Himself, the sheep must have 
been the sacrifice. 



310 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

Observe, however, the suffering of Christ was not 
the same suffering as that from which He saved us. The 
suffering of Christ was death. But the suffering from 
which He redeemed us by death was more terrible than 
death. The pit into which He descended was the 
grave. But the pit in which we should have been lost 
forever was the pit of selfishness and despair. 

Therefore St. Paul affirms, " If Christ be not risen, ye 
are yet in your sms." If Christ's resurrection be a 
dream, and He be not risen from the grave of death, you 
are yet in the grave of guilt. He bore suffering to free 
us from what is worse than suffering — sin ; temporal 
death, to save us from death everlasting ; His life given 
as an offering for sin to save the soul's eternal life. 

Now, in the text this sacrificing love of Christ is par- 
alleled by the love of the Father to the Son. As He 
loved the sheep, so the Father had loved Him. There- 
fore, the sacrifice of Christ is but a mirror of the love 
of God. The love of the Father to the Son is self- 
sacrificing Love. 

You know that shallow men make themselves merry 
with this doctrine. The sacrifice of God, they say, is a 
figment, and an impossibility. Nevertheless, this paral- 
lel tells us that it is one of the deepest truths of all the 
universe. It is the profound truth which the ancient 
fathers endeavored to express in the doctrine of the 
Trinity. For what is the love of the Father to the Son 
— Himself yet not Himself — but the grand truth of 
Eternal Love losing itself and finding itself again in 
the being of another? What is it but the sublime 
expression of the unselfishness of God? 

It is a profound, glorious truth ; I wish I knew how 
to put it in intelligible words. But, if these words of 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 311 

Christ do not make it intelligible to the heart, how can 
any words of mine ? The life of blessedness, the life 
of love, the life of sacrifice, the life of God, are iden- 
tical. All love is sacrifice — the giving of life and 
self for others. God's life is sacrifice ; for the Father 
loves the Son as the Son loves the sheep for whom He 
gave His life. 

Whoever will humbly ponder upon this will, I think, 
understand the Atonement better than all theology can 
teach him. 0, my brethren, leave men to quarrel as 
they will about the theology of the Atonement ; here 
in these words is the religion of it, — the blessed, all- 
satisfying religion for our hearts. The self-sacrifice 
of Christ was the satisfaction to the Father. 

How could the Father be soMsfied with the death of 
Christ, unless He saw in the sacrifice mirrored His own 
love ? — for God can be satisfied only with that which 
is perfect as Himself Agony does not satisfy God, — ■ 
agony only satisfied Moloch. Nothing satisfies God 
but the voluntary sacrifice of Love. 

The pain of Christ gave God no pleasure : only 
the love that was tested by pain, — the love of the 
obedient. He was obedient unto death. 



XXI. 

[Preached Easter-day, March 27, 1853.] 

THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

John xx. 29. — " Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen 
me, thou hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet 
have believed. ' ' 

The day on which these words were spoken was the 
jSrst day of the week. On that day Thomas received 
demonstration that his Lord was risen from the dead. 
On that same day, a week before, Thomas had declared 
that no testimony of others, no eyesight of his own, 
nothing short of touching with his hands the crucifix- 
ion marks in his Master's body, should induce him to 
believe a fact so unnatural as the resurrection of a 
human being from the grave. Those seven days 
between must, therefore, have been spent in a state of 
miserable uncertainty. How miserable, and how rest- 
less, none can understand but those who have felt the 
wretchedness of earnest doubt. 

Doubt, moreover, observe, respecting all that is 
dear to a Christian's hopes. For if Christ were not 
risen, Christianity was false, and every high aspiration 
which it promised to gratify was thrown back on the 
disappointed heart. 

Let us try to understand the doubt of Thomas. 

(312) 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 313 

There are some men whose affections are stronger than 
their understandings ; they feel more than they think. 
They are simple, trustful, able to repose implicitly on 
what is told them, — liable sometimes to verge upon 
credulity and superstition, but, take them all in all, per- 
haps the happiest class of minds ; for it is happy to be 
without misgivings about the love of God and our own 
eternal rest in Him. " Blessed," said Christ to Thomas, 
" are they that have believed." 

There is another class of men whose reflective pow- 
ers are stronger than their susceptible ; they think out 
truth, — they do not feel it out. Often highly gifted 
and powerful minds, they cannot rest till they have 
made all their ground certain ; they do not feel safe as 
long as there is one possibility of delusion left ; they 
prove all things. Such a man was Thomas. He has 
well been called the rationalist among the apostles. 
Happy such men cannot be. An anxious and inquir- 
ing mind dooms its possessor to unrest. But men of 
generous spirit, manly and affectionate, they may be ; 
Thomas was. When Christ was bent on going to 
Jerusalem, to certain death, Thomas said, " Let us go 
up, too, that we may die with Him." And men of 
mighty faith they may become, if they are true to 
themselves and their convictions. Thomas did. When 
such men do believe, it is a belief with all the heart 
and soul for life. When a subject has been once thor- 
oughly and suspiciously investigated, and settled once 
for all, the adherence of the whole reasoning man, if 
given in at all, is given frankly and heartily, as Thomas 
gave it, — ^' My Lord; and my God." 

Now, this question of a resurrection, which made 
Thomas restless, is the most anxious that can agitate 
27 



314 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

tlie mind of man. So awful in its importance, and out 
of Christ so almost desperately dark in its uncertainty, 
who shall blame an earnest man severely if he crave 
the most indisputable proofs ? 

Yery clearly Christ did not. Thomas asked of 
Christ a sign; he must put his own hands into the 
prints. His Master gave him that sign or proof. He 
said, " Reach hither thy hand." He gave it, it is true, 
with a gentle and delicate reproof, — but He did give 
it. Now, from that condescension, we are reminded 
of the darkness that hangs round the question of a 
resurrection, and how excusable it is for a man to 
question earnestly until he has got proof to stand on. 
For, if it were not excusable to crave a proof, our 
Master never would have granted one. Resurrection 
is not one of those questions on which you can afford 
to wait ; it is the question of life and death. There 
are times when it does not weigh heavily. When we 
have some keen pursuit before us, when we are young 
enough to be satisfied to enjoy ourselves, the prob- 
lem does not press itself. We are too laden with the 
pressure of the present, to care to ask what is coming. 
But at last a time comes when we feel it will be all 
over soon, — that much of our time is gone, and the 
rest swiftly going. And let a man be as frivolous as 
he will at heart, it is a question too solemn to be put 
aside, — Whether he is going down into extinction and 
the blank of everlasting silence, or not. Whether, in 
those far ages, when the very oak which is to form his 
coffin shall have become fibres of black mould, and the 
church-yard in which he is to lie shall have become, 
perhaps, unconsecrated ground, and the spades of a 
generation yet unborn shall have exposed his bones, 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 315 

those bones will be the last relic in the world to bear 
record that he once trod this green earth, and that life 
was once dear to him, Thomas, or James, or Paul. Or 
whether that thrilling, loving, thinking something, that 
he calls himself, has indeed within it an indestructible 
existence, which shall still be conscious, when every- 
thing else shall have rushed into endless wreck. 0, 
in the awful earnestness of a question such as that, a 
speculation and a peradventure will not do ; we must 
have proof. The honest doubt of Thomas craves a 
sign as much as the cold doubt of the Sadducee. And 
a sign shall be mercifully given to the doubt of love 
which is refused to the doubt of indifference. 
This passage presents two lines of thought. 

I. The naturalness of the doubts of Thomas, which 
partly excuses them. 

II. The evidences of the Christian Eesurrection. 

I. The naturalness of the doubts of Thomas. 

The first assertion that we make to explain those 
doubts is, that Nature is silent respecting a future life. 
All that reason, all that Nature, all that religion, apart 
from Christ, have to show us, is something worse than 
darkness. It is the twilight of excruciating uncer- 
tainty. There is enough in the riddle of this world to 
show us that there may be a life to come ; there is 
nothing to make it certain that there will be one. We 
crave, as Thomas did, a sign either in the height above 
or in the depth beneath ; and the answer seems to fall 
back like ice upon our hearts. There shall no sign be 
given you. 

It is the uncertainty of twilight. You strain at 
something in the twilight, and just when you are be- 



316 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

ginning to make out its form and color, the light fails 
you, and your eyelid sinks down, wet and wearied 
with the exertion. Just so it is when we strain into 
Nature's mysteries, to discern the secret of the Great 
Hereafter. Exactly at the moment when we think we 
begin to distinguish something, the light goes out, and 
we are left groping in darkness, — the darkness of the 
grave. 

Let us forget for a moment that we ever heard of ' 
Christ: — what is there in life or nature to strengthen 
the guess that there is a life to come? There are 
hints — there are probabilities — there is nothing 
more. Let us examine some of those probabilities. 

First, there is an irrepressible longing in our hearts. 
We wish for immortality. The thought of annihila- 
tion is horrible ; even to conceive it is almost impossi- 
ble. The wish is a kind of argument ; it is not likely 
that Grod would have given all men such a feeling, if 
He h^d not meant to gratify it. Every natural long- 
ing has its natural satisfaction. If we thirst, God has 
created liquids to gratify thirst. If we are susceptible 
of attachment, there are beings to gratify that love. 
If we thirst for life and love eternal, it is likely that 
'there are an eternal life and an eternal love to satisfy 
that craving. 

Likely, I say ; more we cannot say. A likelihood 
of an immortality of which our passionate yearnings 
are a presumption — nothing higher than a likelihood. 
And in weary moments, when the desire of life is not 
strong, and in unloving moments, there is not even a 
likelihood. 

Secondly, corroborating this feeling we have the 
traditions of universal belief. There is not a nation, 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 317 

perhaps, which does not in some form or other hold 
that there is a country beyond the grave where the 
weary are at rest. Now, that which all men every- 
where and in every age have held, it is impossible to 
treat contemptuously. How came it to be held by 
all, if only a delusion ? Here is another probability in 
the universality of belief. And yet, when you come to 
estimate this, it is too slender for a proof; — it is only 
a presumption. The universal voice of mankind is not 
infallible. It was the universal belief once, on the 
evidence of the senses, that the earth was stationary ; 
— the universal voice was wrong. The universal 
voice might be wrong in the matter of a resurrection. 
It might be only a beautiful and fond dream, indulged 
till hope made itself seem to be a reality. You cannot 
build upon it. 

Once again, — In this strange world of perpetual 
change, we are met by many resemblances to a resur- 
rection. Without much exaggeration we call them 
resurrections. There is the resurrection of the moth 
from the grave of the chrysalis. For many ages the 
sculptured butterfly was the type and emblem of im- 
mortality. Because it passes into a state of torpor or 
deadness, and because from that it emerges by a kind 
of resurrection, — the same, yet not the same, — in all 
the radiance of a fresh and beautiful youth, never again 
to be supported by the coarse substance of earth, but 
destined henceforth to nourish its etherealized exist- 
ence on the nectar of the flowers, — the ancients saw 
in that transformation a something added to their 
hopes of immortality. It was their beautiful symbol 
of the soul's indestructibility. 

Again, there is a kind of resurrection when the 
27* 



318 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

spring brings vigor and motion back to the frozen 
pulse of the winter world. Let any one go into the 
fields at this spring season of the year. Let him mark 
the busy preparations for life which are going on. 
Life is at work in every emerald bud, in the bursting 
bark of every polished bough, in the greening tints of 
every brown hill-side. A month ago everything was 
as still and cold as the dead silence which chills the 
heart in the highest regions of the glacier solitudes. 
Life is coming back to a dead world. It is a resurrec- 
tion, surely ! The return of freshness to the frozen 
world is not less marvellous than the return of sensi- 
bility to a heart which has ceased to beat. If one has 
taken place, the other is not impossible. 

And yet all this, valuable as it is in the way of sug- 
gestiveness, is worth nothing in the way of proof. It 
is worth everything to the heart, for it strengthens the 
dim guesses and vague intimations which the heart had 
formed already. It is worth nothing to the intellect ; 
for the moment we come to argue the matter, we find 
how little there is to rest upon in these analogies. 
They are no real resurrections, after all ; they only 
look like resurrections. The chrysalis only seemed 
dead ; the tree in winter only seemed to have lost its 
vitality. Show us a butterfly, which has been dried 
and crushed, fluttering its brilliant wings next year 
again. Show us a tree, plucked up by the roots and 
seasoned by exposure, the vital force really killed out, 
putting forth its leaves again, — then we should have a 
real parallel to a resurrection. But nature does not 
show us that. So that all we have goi m the butterfly 
and the spring are illustrations exquisitely in point 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 319 

after immortality is proved, but in themselves no 
proofs at all. 

Further still. Look at it in another point of view, 
and it is a dark prospect. Human history behind, and 
human history before, both give a stern " No," in reply 
to the question. Shall we rise again ? 

Six thousand years of human existence have passed 
away^ — countless armies of the dead have set sail 
from the shores of time. No traveller has returned 
from the still land beyond. More than one hundred 
and fifty generations have done their work, and sunk 
into the dust again, and still there is not a voice, there 
is not a whisper, from the grave, to tell us whether, 
indeed, those myriads are in existence still. Besides, 
why should they be ? Talk as you will of the grand- 
eur of man, why should it not be honor enough for 
him — more than enough to satisfy a thing so mean — 
to have had his twenty or his seventy years' life-rent 
of God's universe? Why must such a thing, apart 
from proof, rise up and claim to himself an exclusive 
immortality? Man's majesty ! man's worth ! — the dif- 
ference between him and the elephant or ape is too 
degradingly small to venture much on. That is not 
all ; instead of looking backwards, now look forwards. 
The wisest thinkers tell us that there are already on 
the globe traces of a demonstration that the human 
race is drawing to its close. Each of the great human 
families has had its day, — its infancy, its manhood, its 
decline. The two last races that have not been tried 
are on the stage of earth, doing their work now. 
There is no other to succeed them. Man is but of 
vesterday, and yet his race is well-nigh done. Man ia 
wearing out, as everything before him has been worn 



320 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

out. In a few more centuries the crust of earth will 
be the sepulchre of the race of man, as it has been 
the sepulchre of extinct races of palm-trees, and ferns, 
and gigantic reptiles. The time is near when the bones 
of the last human being will be given to the dust. It 
is historically certain that man has quite lately, within 
a few thousand years, been called into existence. It 
is certain that, before very long, the race must be 
extinct." 

Now, look at all this without Christ, and tell us 
whether it be possible to escape such misgivings and 
such reasonings as these, which rise out of such an 
aspect of things. Man, this thing of yesterday, which 
sprung out of the eternal nothingness, why may he 
not sink, after he has played his appointed part, into 
nothingness again? You see the leaves sinking one 
by one in autumn, till the heaps below are rich with 
the spoils of a whole year's vegetation. They were 
bright and perfect while they lasted, — each leaf a mir- 
acle of beauty and contrivance. There is no resur- 
rection for the leaves, — why must there be one for 
man? Go and stand, some summer evening, by the 
river-side : you will see the May-fly sporting out its 
little hour, in dense masses of insect life, darkening 
the air a few feet above the gentle swell of the water. 
The heat of that very afternoon brought them into 
existence. Every gauze wing is traversed by ten 
thousand fibres, which defy the microscope to find a 
flaw in their perfection. The Omniscience and the 
cire bestowed upon that exquisite anatomy, one would 
tnink, cannot be destined to be wasted in a moment. 
Yet so it is ; when the sun has sunk below the trees, 
its little life is done. Yesterday it was not; to-morrow 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 321 

it will not be. God has bidden it be liappy for one 
evening. It has no right or claim to a second ; and in 
the universe that marvellous life has appeared once, 
and will appear no more. May not the race of man 
sink like the generations of the May-fly ? Why cannot 
the Creator, so lavish in His resources, afford to anni- 
hilate souls as He annihilates insects ? Would it not 
almost enhance His glory to believe it? 

That, brethren, is the question ; and nature has no 
reply. The fearful secret of sixty centuries has not 
yet found a voice. The whole evidence lies before us. 
We know what the greatest and wisest have had to say 
in favor of an immortality ; and we know how, after 
eagerly devouring all their arguments, our hearts have 
sunk back in cold disappointment ; and to every proof, 
as we read, our lips have replied, mournfully. That will 
not stand. Search through tradition, history, the 
world within you and the world without, — except in 
Christ there is not the shadow of a shade of proof that 
man survives the grave. 

I do not wonder that Thomas, with that honest, accu- 
rate mind of his, wishing that the news were true, yet 
dreading lest it should be false, and determined to 
guard against every possible illusion, delusion, and 
deception, said, so strongly, " Except I shall see in His 
hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, 1 
will not believe." 

n. The Christian proofs of a Resurrection. 

This text tells us of two kinds of proof The first 
is the evidence of the senses — " Thomas, because 
thou hast seen Me thou hast believed." The other is 



322 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

the evidence of the Spirit — " Blessed are they that 
have not seen, and yet have beheved." 

Let us scrutinize the external evidence of Christ's 
resurrection which those verses furnish. It is a two- 
fold evidence. The witness of the Apostle Thomas, 
who was satisfied with the proofs ; the witness of St. 
John, who records the circumstance of his satisfaction. 
Consider, first, the witness of St. John ; try it by 
ordinary rules. Hearsay evidence, which comes sec- 
ond-hand, is suspicious ; but John's is no distant, hear- 
say story. He does not say that he had heard the 
story from Thomas, and that years afterwards, when 
the circumstances had lost their exact, sharp outline, he 
had penned it down, when he was growing old, and his 
memory might be failing. John was present the whole 
time. All the apostles were there ; they all Avatched 
the result with eager interest. The conditions made 
by Thomas, without which he would not believe, had 
been made before them all. They all heard him say 
that the demonstration was complete ; they all saw 
him touch the wounds ; and St. John recorded what 
he saw. Now, a scene like that is one of those solemn 
ones in a man's life which cannot be forgotten ; it 
graves itself on the memory. A story told us by 
another may be unintentionally altered or exaggerated 
in the repetition ; but a spectacle like this, so strange 
and so solemn, could not be forgotten or misinter- 
preted. St. John could have made no mistake. Esti- 
mate next the worth of the witness of Thomas ; *".ry it 
by the ordinary rules of life. Evidence is worth little 
if it is the evidence of credulity. If you find a man 
belle's ing every new story, and accepting every fresh 
disco'^ ery, so called, without scrutiny, you may give him 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 323 

credit for sincerity ; you cannot rest much upon his 
judgment ; his testimony cannot go for much. For 
example, when St. Peter, after his escape from prison, 
knocked at Mark's mother's door, there went a maid to 
open it, who came back scared and startled with the 
tidings that she had seen his angel or spirit. Had she 
gone about afterwards among the believers with that 
tale, that St. Peter was dead and alive again, it would 
have been worth little. Her fears, her sex, her credu- 
lity, all robbed her testimony of its worth. 

Now, the resurrection of Christ does not stand on 
such a footing. There was one man who dreaded 
the possibility of delusion, however credulous the 
others might be. He resolved beforehand that only 
one proof should be decisive. He would not be con- 
tented with seeing Christ ; that might be a dream — it 
might be the vision of a disordered fancy. He would 
not be satisfied with the assurance of others. The 
evidence of testimony which he did reject was very 
strong. Ten of his most familiar friends, and certain 
women, gave in their separate and their united testi- 
mony ; but against all that St. Thomas held out scepti- 
cally firm. They might have been deceived themselves ; 
they might have been trifling with him. The possi- 
bilities of mistake were innumerable ; the delusions 
of the best men about what they see are incredible. 
He would trust a thing so infinitely important to noth- 
ing but his own scrutinizing hand. It might be some 
one personating his Master. He would put his hands 
into real wounds, or else hold it unproved. The alle- 
giance which was given in so enthusiastically, " My 
Lord, and my God," was given in after, and not 
oefore scrutiny. It was the cautious verdict of an 



324 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

enlightened, suspicious, most earnest, and most honest 
sceptic. 

Try the evidence next by character. Blemished 
character damages evidence. Now, the only charge 
that was ever heard against the Apostle John was that 
he loved a world which hated him. The character of 
the Apostle Thomas is that he Avas a man cautious in 
receiving evidence, and most rigorous in exacting 
satisfactory proof, but ready to act upon his convic- 
tions, when once made, even to the death. Love ele- 
vated above the common love of man, in the one, — 
heroic conscientiousness and a most rare integrity, in 
the other, — who impeaches that testimony ? 

Once more, — any possibility of interested motives 
will discredit evidence. Ask we the motive of John 
or Thomas for this strange tale ? John's reward, — a 
long and solitary banishment to the mines of Patmos. 
The gain and the bribe which tempted Thomas, — a 
lonely pilgrimage to the far East, and death at the last 
in India. Those were strange motives to account for 
their persisting and glorying in the story of the resur- 
rection to the last ! Starving their gain, and martyr- 
dom their price. 

The evidence to which Thomas yielded was the 
evidence of the senses, — touch, and sight, and hear- 
ing. Now, the feeling which arose from this touching, 
and feeling, and demonstration, Christ pronounced to 
be faith : " Thomas, because thou hast seen thou hast 
believed." There are some Christian writers who tell 
as that the conviction produced by the intellect or the 
senses is not faith ; but Christ says it is. Observe, 
then, it matters not how faith comes, — whether 
through the intellect, as in the case of St. Thomas, or 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 325 

in the heart, as in the case of St. John, or as the 
result of long education, as in the case of St. Peter. 
God has many ways of bringing different characters 
to faith ; but that blessed thing which the Bible calls 
faith is a state of soul in which the things of God 
become glorious certainties. It was not faith which 
assured Thomas that what stood before him was the 
Christ he had known ; that was sight. But it was 
faith which from the visible enabled him to pierce up 
to the truth invisible : " My Lord, and my God.'^ And 
it was faith which enabled him, through all life after, to 
venture everything on that conviction, and live for 
One who had died for him. 

Remark again this : The faith of Thomas was not 
merely satisfaction about a. fact ; it was trust in a Per- 
son. The admission of a fact, however sublime, is not 
faith ; we may believe that Christ is risen, yet not 
be nearer heaven. It is a Bible fact that Lazarus 
rose from the grave ; but belief in Lazarus' resurrec- 
tion does not make the soul better than it was. Thomas 
passed on from the fact of the resurrection to the Per- 
son of the risen : " My Lord, and my God." Trust in 
the risen Saviour — that was the belief which saved his 
soul. 

And that is our salvation too. You may satisfy 
yourself about the evidences of the resurrection ; you 
may bring in your verdict well, like a cautious and 
enlightened judge : you are then in possession of a 
fact, a most valuable and curious fact ; but faith of any 
saving worth you have not, unless from the fact you 
pass on, like Thomas, to cast the allegiance and the 
homage of your soul, and the love of all your being, 
on Him whom Thomas worshipped. It is not belief 
28 



326 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

about the Christ, but personal trust in the Christ of 
G-od, that saves the soul. 

There is another kind of evidence by which the 
Resurrection becomes certain. Not the evidence of 
the senses, but the evidence of the spirit : " Blessed 
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
There are thousands of Christians, who have never 
examined the evidences of the resurrection piece by 
piece ; they are incapable of estimating it, if they did 
examine ; they know nothing about the laws of evi- 
dence ; they have had no experience in balancing the 
value of testimony ; they are neither lawyers nor phi- 
losophers ; and yet these simple Christians have re- 
ceived into their very souls the Resurrection of their 
Redeemer, and look forward to their own rising from 
the grave with a trust as firm, as steady, and as saving, 
as if they had themselves put their hands into His 
wounds. 

They have never seen, they know nothing of proofs 
and miracles, yet they believe and are blessed. How 
is this ? 

I reply, there is an inward state of heart which 
makes truth credible the moment it is stated. It is 
credible to some men because of what they are. Love 
is credible to a loving heart ; purity is credible to a 
pure mind ; life is credible to a spirit in which life ever 
beats strongly: it is incredible to other men. Because 
of that, such men believe. Of course, that inward state 
could not reveal a fact like the resurrection ; but it can 
receive the fact the moment it is revealed, without re- 
quiring evidence. The love of St. John himself never 
could discover a resurrection ; but it made a resurrec- 
tion easily believed, when the man of intellect, St. 



THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 327 

Thomas, found difficulties. Therefore " with the heart 
man beheveth unto righteousness/' and therefore " he 
that beheveth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself," and therefore " Faith is the substance of things 
hoped for." Now, it is of such a state — a state of love 
and hope, which makes the Divine truth credible and 
natural at once — that Jesus speaks : " Blessed are they 
that have not seen, and yet have believed." 

There are men in whom the resurrection begun 
makes the resurrection credible. In them the spirit 
of the risen Saviour works already ; and they have 
mounted with Him from the grave. They have risen 
out of the darkness of doubt, and are expatiating in 
the brightness and the sunshine of a Day in which 
God is ever Light. Their step is as free as if the 
clay of the sepulchre had been shaken off, and their 
hearts are lighter than those of other men, and there 
is in them an unearthly triumph which they are unable 
to express. They have risen above the narrowness 
of life, and all that is petty, and ungenerous, and 
mean. They have risen above fear, — they have risen 
above self In the New Testament that is called the 
spiritual resurrection, or being risen with Christ ; and 
the man in whom all that is working has got something 
more blessed than external evidence to rest upon. He 
has the witness in himself; he has not seen, and yet he 
has believed ; he believed in a resurrection, because 
he has the resurrection in himself The resurrection, 
in all its heavenliness and unearthly elevation, has be- 
gun within his soul ; and he knows, as clearly as if he 
had demonstration, that it must be developed in an 
eternal life. 

Now, this is the higher and nobler kind of faith, — 



328 THE DOUBT OF THOMAS. 

a faith more blessed than that of Thomas. " Because 
thou hast seen Me, tliou hast beheved." There are 
times when we envy, as possessed of higher privileges, 
those who saw Christ in the flesh ; Ave think that if we 
could have heard that calm voice, or seen that blessed 
presence, or touched those lacerated wounds in His 
sacred flesh, all doubt would be set at rest forever. 
Therefore, these words must be our corrective. God 
has granted us the possibility of believing in a more 
trustful and more generous way than if we saw. To 
believe, not because we are learned and can prove, but 
because there is a something in us, even God's own 
Spirit, which makes us feel light as light, and truth as 
true, — that is the blessed faith. 

Blessed, because it carries with it spiritual elevation 
of character. Narrow the prospects of man to this 
time-world, and it is impossible to escape the conclu- 
sions of the Epicurean sensualist. If to-morrow we 
die, let us eat and drink to-day. If we die the sinner's 
death, it becomes a matter of mere taste whether we 
shall live the sinner's life or not. But, if our exist- 
ence is forever, then, plainly, that which is to be daily 
subdued and subordinated is the animal within us ; that 
which is to be cherished is that which is likest God 
within us, — which we have from Him, and which is 
the sole pledge of eternal being in spirit-life. 



XXII. 

[Preached May 8, 1853.] 

THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

Mabk xiv. 41, 42. — "And he cometh the third time, and saith unto 
them, Sleep on now, and take your rest ; it is enough, the hour is 
come ; behold the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 
Rise up, let us go ; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." 

It is upon two sentences of this passage that our 
attention is to be fixed to-day, — sentences which in 
themselves are apparently contradictory, but which 
are pregnant with a lesson of the deepest practical 
import. Looked at in the mere meaning of the words 
as they stand, our Lord's first command, given to His 
disciples, " Sleep on now, and take your rest," is in- 
consistent with the second command, which follows 
almost in the same breath, " Rise, let us be going." A 
permission to slumber, and a warning to arouse at 
once, are injunctions which can scarcely stand to- 
gether in the same sentence consistently. 

Our first inquiry therefore is, what did our Re- 
deemer mean ? We shall arrive at the true solution 
of this difficulty if we review the circumstances under 
which these words were spoken. The account with 
which these verses stand connected belongs to one 
of the last scenes in the drama of our Master's earthly 
pilgrimage ; it is found in the history of the trial-hour 

28* (329) 



330 THE lEREPARABLE PAST. 

which was passed in the garden of Gethsemane. And 
an hour it was indeed big with the destinies of the 
world, for the command had gone forth to seize the 
Saviour's person ; but the Saviour was still at large 
and free. Upon the success or the frustration of that 
plan the world's fate Avas trembling. Three men were 
selected to be witnesses of the sufferings of that hour, — 
three men, the favored ones on all occasions of the 
apostolic band, — and the single injunction which had 
been laid upon them was, " Watch with me one hour." 
That charge to watch or keep awake seems to have 
been given with two ends in view. He asked them 
to keep awake, first that they might sympathize with 
Him. He commanded them to keep awake, that they 
might be on their guard against surprise ; that they 
might afford sympathy, because never in all His career 
did Christ more stand in need of such soothing as it 
was in the power of man to give. It is true that was 
not much ; the struggle, and the agony, and the mak- 
ing up of the mind to death, had something in them 
too Divine and too mysterious to be understood by the 
disciples, and therefore sympathy could but reach a 
portion of what our Redeemer felt. Yet still it ap- 
pears to have been an additional pang in Christ's 
anguish to find that He was left thoroughly alone, to 
endure, while even His own friends did not compas- 
sionate His endurance. We know what a relief it is 
to see the honest, affectionate face of a menial servant, 
or some poor dependant, regretting that your suffering 
may be infinitely above his comprehension. It may 
be a secret which you cannot impart to him ; or it 
may be a mental distress which his mind is too unedu- 
cated to appreciate ; yet still his sympathy in your 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 331 

dark hour is worth a world. What you suffer he 
knows not ; but he knows you do suffer, and it pains 
him to think of it ; there is balm to you in that. This 
is the power of sympathy. We can do little for one 
another in this world. Little, very little, can be done 
when the worst must come; but yet, to know that the 
pulses of a human heart are vibrating with yours, 
there is something in that, let the distance between 
man and man be ever so immeasurable, exquisitely 
soothing. It was this, and but this, in the way of 
feeling, that Christ asked of Peter, James, and John. 
Watch — be awake ; let Me not feel that when I agon- 
ize, you can be at ease and comfortable. But it would 
seem there was another thing which He asked in the 
way of assistance. The plot to capture Him was laid ; 
the chance of that plot's success lay in making the 
surprise so sudden as to cut off all possibiHty of 
escape. The hope of defeating that plot depended 
upon the fidelity of apostolic vigilance. Humanly 
speaking, had they been vigilant, they might have 
saved Him. Breathless listening for the sound of 
footsteps in the distance ; eyes anxiously straining 
through the trees to distinguish the glitter of the 
lanterns ; unremitting apprehension catching from the 
word of Christ an intimation that He was in danger, 
and so giving notice on the first approach of anything 
like intrusion, — that would have been watching. 

That command to watch was given twice : first, 
when Christ first retired aside, leaving the disciples 
by themselves ; secondly, in a reproachful way, when 
He returned and found His request disregarded. He 
waked them up once and said, " What, could ye not 
watch with Me one hour?" He came again, and 



332 THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

found their eyes closed once more. On that occasion 
not a syllable fell from His lips ; He did not waken 
them a second time. He passed away, sad and disap- 
pointed, and left them to their slumbers. But when 
He came the third time, it was no longer possible for 
their sleep to do Him harm, or their watching to do 
Him good. The precious opportunity was lost for- 
ever. Sympathy — vigilance — the hour for these was 
past. The priests had succeeded in their surprise, and 
Judas had well led them through the dark with uner- 
ring accuracy, to the very spot where his Master 
knelt ; and there were seen quite close, the dark 
figures shown in relief against the glare of the red 
torchlight, and every now and then the gleam glitter- 
ing from the bared steel and the Roman armor. It 
was all over ; they might sleep as they liked ; their 
sleeping could do no injury now, their watching 
could do no good. And therefore, partly in bitterness, 
partly in reproach, partly in a kind of earnest irony, 
partly in sad earnest, our Master said to His disciples. 
Sleep on now ; there is no use in watching now ; take 
your rest — forever if you will. Sleep and rest can 
do Me no more harm now, for all that watching might 
have done is lost. 

But, brethren, we have to observe that in the next 
sentence our Redeemer addresses Himself to the con- 
sideration of what could yet be done ; the best thing 
as circumstances then stood. So far as any good to 
be got from watching went, they might sleep on; 
there was no reparation for the fault that nad been 
done ; but so far as duty went, there was still much 
of endurance to which they had to rouse themselves, 
rhey could not save their Master, but they might 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 333 

loyally and manfully share His disgrace, and, if it must 
be, His death. They could not put off the penalty, 
but they might steel themselves cheerfully to share it. 
Safety was out of the question now ; but they might 
meet their fate, instead of being overwhelmed by it ; 
and so, as respected what was gone by, Christ said, 
" Sleep," what is done cannot be undone ; but as 
respected the duties that were lying before them still, 
He said. We must make the best of it that can be 
made ; rouse yourselves to dare the worst ; on to 
enact your parts like men. Rise, let us be going, — 
we have something still left to do. Here then we 
have two subjects of contemplation distinctly marked 
out for us. 

I. The irreparable Past. 

n. The available Future. 

The words of Christ are not like the words of other 
men; His sentences do not end with the occasion 
which called them forth ; every sentence of Christ's 
is a deep principle of human life, and it is so with 
these sentences. " Sleep on now," — that is a principle. 
" Rise up, and let us be going," — that is another prin- 
ciple. The principle contained in " Sleep on now " is 
this, that the past is irreparable, and after a certain 
moment waking will do no good. You may improve 
the future — the past is gone beyond recovery. As to 
all that is gone by, so far as the hope of altering it 
goes, you may sleep on and take your rest ; there is 
no power in earth or heaven that can undo what has 
once been done. 

Now, let us proceed to give illustrations of this 
principle. 



334 THE lEEEPARABLE PAST. 

It is true, first of all, with respect to time that ia 
gone by. Time is the solemn inheritance to which 
every man is born heir, who has a life-rent of this 
world, — a little section cut out of eternity and given 
us to do our work in ; an eternity before, an eternity 
behind ; and the small stream between, floating swiftly 
from the one into the vast bosom of the other. The 
man who has felt with all his soul the significance of 
time will not be long in learning any lesson that this 
world has to teach him. Have you ever felt it, my 
Christian brethren ? Have you ever realized how 
your own little streamlet is gliding away, and bearing 
you along with it towards that awful other world, of 
which all things here are but the thin shadows, down 
into that eternity towards which the confused wreck 
of all earthly things is bound? Let us realize that, 
beloved brethren : until that sensation of time, and 
the infinite meaning which is wrapped up in it, has 
taken possession of our souls, there is no chance of 
our ever feeling strongly that it is worse than madness 
to sleep that time away. Every day in this world has 
its work ; and every day, as it rises out of eternity, 
keeps putting to each of us the question afresh, What 
will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and 
nothingness again? And now what have we to say 
with respect to this strange, solemn thing — time ? 
That men do with it through life just what the apos- 
tles did for one precious and irreparable hour of it in 
the garden of Gethsemane ; they go to sleep. Have 
you ever seen those marble statues in some public 
square or garden, which art has so finished into a pe- 
rennial fountain that through the lips, or through the 
hands, the clear water flows in a perpetual stream, on 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 335 

on and on forever; and the marble stands there — 
passive, cold — making no effort to arrest the gliding 
water ? 

It is so that time flows through the hands of men, — 
swift, never pausing till it has run itself out ; and 
there is the man petrified into a marble sleep, not feel- 
ing what it is which is passing away forever. It is so, 
brethren, just so, that the destiny of nine men out of 
ten accomplishes itself, slipping away from them, aim- 
less, useless, till it is too late. And this passage asks 
us, with all the solemn thoughts which crowd around 
an approaching eternity, what has been our hfe, and 
what do we intend it shall be ? Yesterday, last week, 
last year, — they are gone. Yesterday, for example, 
was such a day as never was before, and never can be 
again. Out of darkness and eternity it was born, a 
new, fresh day; into darkness and eternity it sank 
again forever. It had a voice calling to us, of its own. 
Its own work, its own duties. What were we doing 
yesterday ? Idling, whiling away the time in light and 
luxurious literature, — not as life's relaxation, but as 
life's business? thrilling our hearts with the excite- 
ment of life ? contriving how to spend the day most 
pleasantly ? Was that our day ? Sleep, brethren ! all 
that is but the sleep of the three apostles. And now 
let us remember this : there is a day coming when 
that sleep will be broken rudely, with a shock ; there 
is a day in our future lives when our time will be 
counted, not by years, nor by months, nor yet by 
hours, but by minutes, — the day when unmistakable 
symptoms shall announce that the Messengers of Death 
have come to take us. 

That startling moment will come which it is vain to 



336 THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

attempt to realize now, when it will be felt that it is 
all over, at last, — that our chance and our trial are 
past. The moment that we have tried to think of, 
shrunk from, put away from us, here it is — going, too, 
like all other moments that have gone before it ; and 
then, with eyes unsealed at last, you look back on the 
life which is gone by. There is no mistake about it ; 
there it is, a sleep, a most palpable sleep, — self- 
indulged unconsciousness of high destinies, and God, 
and Christ ; a sleep when Christ was calling out to 
you to watch with Him one hour ; a sleep when there 
was something to be done ; a sleep broken, it may be, 
once or twice by restless dreams, and by a voice of 
truth which would make itself heard at times, but still 
a sleep which was only rocked into deeper stillness by 
interruption. And now, from the undone eternity, 
the boom of whose waves is distinctly audible upon 
your soul, there comes the same voice again — a sol- 
emn, sad voice — but no longer the same word, 
" Watch ;" — other words altogether, " You may go to 
sleep." It is too late to wake ; there is no science in 
earth or heaven to recall time that once has fled. 

Again, this principle of the irreparable past holds 
good with respect to preparing for temptation. That 
hour in the garden was a precious opportunity given 
for laying in spiritual strength. Christ knew it well. 
He struggled and fought then ; therefore there was no 
struggling afterwards, — no trembling in the judgment- 
hall, — no shrinking on the cross, but only dignified 
and calm victory ; for He had fought the Temptation 
on His knees beforehand, and conquered all in the 
garden. The battle of the Judgment-hall, the battle 
of the Cross, were already fought and over, in the 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 337 

Watch, and in the Agony. The apostles missed the 
meaning of that hour ; and therefore, when it came to 
the question of trial, the loudest boaster of them all 
shrunk from acknowledging Whose he was, and the 
rest played the part of the craven ai\d the renegade. 
And, if the reason of this be asked, it is simply this : 
They went to trial unprepared ; they had not prayed ; 
and what is a Christian without prayer, but Samson 
without his talisman of hair. 

Brethren, in this world, when there is any foreseen 
or suspected danger before us, it is our duty to fore- 
cast our trial. It is our wisdom to put on our armor 
— to consider what lies before us — to call up resolu- 
tion in God's strength to go through what we may 
have to do. And it is marvellous how difficulties 
smooth away before a Christian when he does this. 
Trials that cost him a struggle to meet even in imag- 
ination — like the heavy sweat of Gethsemane, when 
Christ was looking forward and feeling exceeding sor 
rowful even unto death — come to their crisis; and, 
behold, to his astonishment they are nothing, — they 
have been fought and conquered already. But, if you 
go to meet those temptations, not as Christ did, but as 
the apostles did, prayerless, trusting to the chance 
impulse of the moment, you may make up your mind 
to fail. That opportunity lost is irreparable ; it is 
your doom to yield then. Those words are true, you 
may " sleep on now, and take your rest," for you have 
betrayed yourself into the hands of danger. 

And now one word about prayer. It is a preparation 
for danger, it is the armor for battle. Go not, my 
Christian brother, into the dangerous world without 
it. You kneel down at night to pray, and drowsiness 

29 



338 THE IREEPARABLE PAST. 

weighs down your eyelids. A hard day's work is a 
kind of excuse, and you shorten your prayer, and 
resign yourself softly to repose. The morning breaks, 
and it may be you rise late, and so your early devo- 
tions are not done, or done with irregular haste. No 
watching unto prayer, — wakefulness once more omit- 
ted. And now we ask, is that reparable ? Brethren, 
we solemnly believe not. There has been that done 
which cannot be undone. You have given up your 
prayer, and you will suffer for it. Temptation is before 
you, and you are not fit to meet it. There is a guilty 
feeling on the soul, and you linger at a distance from 
Christ. It is no marvel if that day in which you suf- 
fered drowsiness to interfere with prayer be a day on 
which you betray Him by cowardice and soft shrink- 
ing from duty. Let it be a principle through life, 
moments of prayer intruded upon by sloth cannot be 
made up. We may get experience, but we cannot get 
back the rich freshness and strength which were 
wrapped up in these moments. 

Once again this principle is true in another respect. 
Opportunities of doing good do not come back. We 
are here, brethren, for a most definite and intelligible 
purpose, — to educate our own hearts by deeds of 
love, and to be the instruments of blessing to our 
brother-men. There are two ways in which this is to 
be done, — by guarding them from danger, and by 
soothing them in their rough path by kindly sympa- 
thies, — the two things which the apostles were asked 
to do for Christ. And it is an encouraging thought, 
that he who cannot do the one has at least the other 
in his power. If he cannot protect, he can sympa- 
thize. Let the weakest, let the humblest in this 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 339 

congregation, remember that in his daily course he 
can, if he will, shed around him almost a heaven. 
Kindly words, sympathizing attentions, watchfulness 
against wounding men's sensitiveness, — these cost 
very little, but they are priceless in their value. Are 
they not, brethren, almost the staple of our daily happi- 
ness ? From hour to hour, from moment to moment, 
we are supported, blest, by small kindnesses. And then 
consider: — Here is a section of life one-third, one- 
half, it may be three-fqurths, gone by, and the question 
before us is how much has been done in that way ? 
Who has charged himself with the guardianship of 
his brother's safety? Who has laid on himself as a 
sacred duty to sit beside his brother suffering ? 0, 
my brethren, it is the omission of these things which 
is irreparable ! Irreparable, when you look to the 
purest enjoyment which might have been your own ; 
irreparable, when you consider thd compunction which 
belongs to deeds of love not done ; irreparable, when 
you look to this groaning world, and feel that its agony 
of bloody sweat has been distilling all night, and you 
were dreaming away in luxury ! Shame, shame upon 
our selfishness ! There is an infinite voice in the sin 
and sufferings of earth's millions, which makes every 
idle moment — every moment, that is, which is not relax- 
ation — guilt ; and seems to cry out. If you will not 
bestir yourself for love's sake noWj it will soon be too 
late. 

Lastly, this principle applies to a misspent youth. 
There is something very remarkable in the picture 
which is placed before us. There is a picture of One 
struggling, toiling, standing between others and dan- 
ger, and those others quietly content to reap the ben- 



340 THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

efit of that struggle without anxiety of their own. And 
there is something in this singularly like the position in 
which all young persons are placed. The young are^ 
by God's Providence, exempted in a great measure 
from anxiety ,* they are as the apostles were in relation 
to their Master ; their friends stand between them and 
the struggle of existence. They are not called upon 
to think for themselves ; the burden is borne by others. 
They get their bread without knowing or caring how 
it is paid for; they smile andlaugh without a suspicion 
of the anxious thoughts of day and night which a 
parent bears to enable them to smile. So to speak 
they are sleeping, — and it is not a guilty sleep, — - 
while another watches. 

My young brethren, youth is one of the precious 
opportunities of life, rich in blessing if you choose to 
make it so, but having in it the materials of undying 
remorse if you suffer it to pass unimproved. Your 
quiet Gethsemane is now. Gethsemane's struggles 
you cannot know yet. Take care that you do not 
learn too well Gethsemane's sleep. Do you know how 
you can imitate the apostles in their fatal sleep ? You 
can suffer your young days to pass idly and uselessly 
away ; you can live as if you had nothing to do but to 
enjoy yourselves ; you can let others think for you, 
and not try to become thoughtful yourselves, till the 
business and the difficulties of life come upon you 
unprepared, and you find yourselves, like men waking 
from sleep, hurried, confused, scarcely able to stand, 
with all the faculties bewildered, not knowing right 
from wrong, led headlong to evil, just because you 
have not given yourselves in time to learn what is 
good. All that is sleep. And now, let us mark it. 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 341 

You cannot repair that in after-life. ! remember, 
every period of human life has its own lesson, and you 
cannot learn that lesson in the next period. The boy 
has one set of lessons to learn, and the young man 
another, and the grown-up man another. Let us con- 
sider one single instance. The boy has to learn 
docility, gentleness of temper, reverence, submissioQ. 
All those feelings which are to be transferred after- 
wards in full cultivation to God, like plants nursed in 
a hot-bed and then planted out, are to be cultivated 
first in youth. Afterwards, those habits which have 
been merely habits of obedience to an earthly parent 
are to become religious submission to a Heavenly 
Parent. Our parents stand to us in the place of God. 
Veneration for our parents is intended to become 
afterwards adoration for something higher. Take that 
single instance ; and now suppose that that is not 
learnt in boyhood. Suppose that the boy sleeps to 
that duty of veneration, and learns only flippancy, 
insubordination, and the habit of deceiving his father, — 
can that, my young brethren, be repaired afterwards ? 
Humanly speaking, not. Life is like the transition from 
class to class in a school. The schoolboy who has not 
learnt arithmetic in the earlier classes cannot secure 
it when he comes to mechanics in the higher j each 
section has its own sufficient work. He may be a 
good philosopher or a good historian, but a bad arith- 
metician he remains for life ; for he cannot lay the 
foundation at the moment when he must be building 
•.the superstructure. The regiment which has not per- 
fected itself in its manoeuvres on the parade-ground 
cannot learn them before the guns of the enemy. 
And, just in the same way, the young person who has 

29* 



342 THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

slept his youth away, and become idle and selfish and 
hard, cannot make up for that afterwards. He may do 
something ; he may be religious. Yes ; but he cannot 
be what he might have been. There is a part of his 
heart which will remain uncultivated to the end. The 
apostles could share their Master's sufferings ; they 
could not save Him. Youth has its irreparable past. 

And, therefore, my young brethren, let it be im- 
pressed upon you — NOW is a time, infinite in its value 
for eternity, which will never return again. Sleep 
not ; learn that there is a very solemn work of heart 
which must be done while the stillness of the garden 
of your Gethsemane gives you time. Now — or never. 

The treasures at your command are infinite — treas- 
ures of time, treasures of youth, treasures of oppor- 
tunity, that grown-up men would sacrifice everything 
they have to possess. 0, for ten years of youth back 
again, with the added experience of age ! But it can- 
not be ; they must be content to sleep on now, and 
take their rest. 

We are to pass on next to a few remarks on the 
other sentence in this passage, which brings before us, 
for consideration, the future, which is still available ; 
for we are to observe that our Master did not limit 
his apostles to a regretful recollection of their failure. 
Recollection of it He did demand. There were the 
materials of a most cutting self-reproach in the few 
words He said ; for they contained all the desolation 
of that sad word never. Who knows not what that 
word wraps up — Never — it never can be undone ! 
Sleep on. But yet there was no sickly lingering over 
the irreparable. Our Master's ' words are the words 
of one who had fully recognized the hopelessness of 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 343 

his position, but yet manfully and calmly had numbered 
his resources, and scanned his duties, and then braced 
up his mind to meet the exigences of his situation 
with no passive endurance ; the moment was come for 
action : " Rise, let us be going." 

Now, the broad general lesson which we gain from 
this is not hard to read. It is that a Christian is to be 
forever rousing himself to recognize the duties which 
lie before him now. In Christ the motto is ever this : 
" Let us be going." Let me speak to the conscience 
of some one. Perhaps yours is a very remorseful past, 
— a foolish, frivolous, disgraceful, frittered past. Well, 
Christ says, My servant, be sad, but no languor ; there 
is work to be done for me yet. Rise up, be going ! 
0, my brethren, Christ takes your wretched remnants 
of life, the feeble pulses of a heart which has spent its 
best hours, not for Him, but for self and for enjoy- 
ment, and, in His strange love, He condescends to 
accept them. 

Let me speak to another kind of experience. Per- 
haps we feel that we have faculties which never have 
and now never will find their right field ; perhaps we 
are ignorant of many things which cannot be learnt 
now; perhaps the seed-time of life has gone by, and 
certain powers of heart and mind will not grow now ; 
perhaps you feel that the best days of life are gone, 
and it is too late to begin things which were in your 
power once. Still, my repentant brother, there is 
encouragement from your Master yet. Wake to the 
opportunities that yet remain. Ten years of life — 
five years — one year — say you have only that, — 
Will you sleep that away because you have already 
slept too long? Eternity is crying out to you louder 



344 THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 

and louder, as you near its brink, Rise, be going ; 
count your resources ; learn what you are not fit for, 
and give up wishing for it; learn what you can do, 
and do it with the energy of a man. That is the great 
lesson of this passage. But now consider it a little 
more closely. 

Christ impressed two things on His apostles' minds. 
1. The duty of Christian earnestness — "Rise." 2. 
The duty of Christian energy — " Let us be going." 

Christ roused them to earnestness when He said, 
" Rise." A short, sharp, rousing call. They were to 
start up and wake to the realities of their position. 
The guards were on them; their Master was about 
to be led away to doom. That was an awakening 
which would make men spring to their feet in earnest. 
Brethren, goodness and earnestness are nearly the 
same thing. In the language in which this Bible was 
written there was one word which expressed them 
both; what we translate a good man, in Greek is 
literally " earnest." The Greeks felt that to be earnest 
was nearly identical with being good. But, however, 
there is a day in life when a man must be earnest, but 
it does not follow that he will be good. " Behold the 
bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to meet him." That is 
a sound that will thunder through the most fast-locked 
slumber, and rouse men whom sermons cannot rouse. 
But that will not make them holy. Earnestness of 
life, brethren, that is goodness. Wake in death you 
mustj for it is an earnest thing to die. Shall it be this, 
I pray you? Shall it be the voice of death which first 
says, " Arise," at the very moment when it says, " Sleep 
on forever"?. Shall it be the bridal train sweeping 
by, and the shutting of the doors, and the discovery 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST. 345 

that the lamp is gone out ? Shall that be the iSrst time 
you know that it is an earnest thing to live ? Let us 
feel that we have been doing ; learn what time is — • 
sliding from you, and not stopping when you stop; 
learn what sin is ; learn what " never " is : " Awake, 
thou that sleepest." 

Lastly, Christian energy — " Let us be going." 
There were two ways open to Christ in which to 
submit to His doom. He might have waited for it; 
instead of which, He went to meet the soldiers. He 
took up the Cross. The cup of anguish was not forced 
between his lips ; He took it with His own hands, and 
drained it quickly to the last drop. In after-years the 
disciples understood the lesson, and acted on it. They 
did not wait till Persecution overtook them: they 
braved the Sanhedrim ; they fronted the world ; they 
proclaimed aloud the unpopular and unpalatable doc- 
trines of the Resurrection and the Cross. Now, in 
this there lies a principle. Under no conceivable set 
of circumstances are we justified in sitting 

*' By the poisoned springs of life. 

Waiting for the morrow which shall free us from the strife." 

Under no circumstances, whether of pain, or grief, or 
disappointment, or irreparable mistake, can it be true 
that there is not something to be done, as well as 
something to be suffered. And thus it is that the 
spirit of Christianity draws over our life, not a leaden 
cloud of Remorse and Despondency, but a sky — not, 
perhaps, of radiant, but yet of most serene and 
chastened and manly hope. There is a Past which is 
gone forever. But there is a Future which is still oui 
own. 



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